Legends, Part 1: In The Beginning
by Lord Leachim
Summary: Albert Wesker and William Birkin have just been hired by the Umbrella Corporation and begin their work under the tutelage of James Marcus and Ozwell Spencer. Wesker is ambitious and Birkin is idealistic, but neither of them is prepared for the truth.
1. Chapter 1

1

Albert Wesker opened the sliding door and stepped out of the helicopter, adjusting his mirrored sunglasses as he did so. The wind caused by the spinning blades whipped his clothes around, the steady roar drowned out any other sounds, and the bright August sunshine hurt his eyes even behind the sunglasses. He stepped onto the circular cement landing pad, tucking his briefcase under his arm, and cautiously moved to the edge of the platform.

No one was waiting for him, which seemed odd. The reception area at the end of the landing pad was empty, leading to a walkway through a thickly-wooded area toward the mansion where his training would begin. Looking around, he took in the view of the picturesque Arklay Mountains. The lab was secluded; that much was obvious. The closest populated area (amusingly named Raccoon City) was almost fifteen miles away, one of the reasons they had sent a helicopter to get him.

Turning around, he saw the helicopter already lifting back into the air. He wondered if it had even touched ground when it dropped him off. The pilot had demonstrated no desire to stay even a second longer than necessary, which Wesker also found odd. He felt like a soldier being dropped deep behind enemy lines, with the helicopter anxious to get back to safety as soon as possible. He watched as the chopper disappeared over the trees and stood alone on the landing pad, wishing absentmindedly that he had been given more specific instructions

"Good afternoon," someone said, startling him. A elderly gentleman stood at the edge of the reception area, hands folded in front of him. He wore a plain brown suit of a style long since out of fashion, and his thin, wire-rimmed glasses hid small, intense eyes. Wesker did not know how the man could have snuck up on him so effectively.

As if reading his mind, the man said, "Sorry if I spooked you. I have a habit of doing that, I suppose. Would you like to come with me, or would you rather continue to sight-see?"

Wesker reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. "I'll come with you," he said unnecessarily, stepping off the pad. He shook a cigarette out of the pack and stuck it in his mouth, offering one to the man beside him.

The man declined politely. "No, thank you. I quit many years ago. It's an awful habit, you know."

"Yes, I do," Wesker said, lighting up.

As they walked down the path toward the mansion, the man did not introduce himself, nor did he need to. Wesker knew him well already from his pictures in the Umbrella recruitment materials sent to him upon graduation of college. His name was James Marcus, and he was the head researcher at the lab. It was actually only a training facility, but the research done there was very real, and Marcus was the man in charge of the entire operation.

Wesker did not expect to be there long. At the age of nineteen, Wesker had already completed his undergraduate studies and was far along in what would normally be considered graduate work , if Wesker had bothered to apply to graduate school. He had completed high school at fourteen, a verified child prodigy, and spent two wasted years at Harvard before transferring to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he had majored in biology and chemistry and eventually created his own major, biochemical engineering, much to the discomfort of his academic advisors, who thought they knew what he wanted more than he did. His core studies included advanced biology, genetic research, and chemical theory. His senior thesis and research project detailed how a virus, such as the common cold, could he genetically tampered with to make it harmless to humans.

What his professors did not know, and what Umbrella did, was that Wesker had actually successfully made those genetic changes. He had sent proof of his work to Umbrella in lieu of a more typical application for employment. They hired him immediately, and so here he was.

"How old are you, young man?" Marcus asked conversationally.

Wesker blew out a trail of smoke that disappeared in the calm breeze. "Nineteen." He said it without pride, but with a hint of contempt. How many people were sent to this laboratory before they hit their twenties? He glanced sideways at Marcus and tried to guess the man's age. Sixty, perhaps? Sixty-five? How old had he been when Umbrella first hired him?

"You certainly have accomplished much in your few years," Marcus said. "I hope your age does not ostracize you from the rest of the trainees here. Everyone here is an equal, you understand, regardless of their prior achievements. I expect nothing less than complete cooperation between you and your fellow scientists."

"And how long will I stay here?" Wesker asked. "How long until I qualify for my own research team and laboratory time?"

"As long as I say you do," Marcus replied simply. "On average, it takes four or five years of work here before I feel someone is prepared for advancement."

Wesker had expected such a response, but he chuckled softly at it anyway. There was no way he was working for five years as some lackey underling. He did not come here to do grunt work until he was twenty-four. If he had wanted that, he would have gone to graduate school and gotten his Ph.D. the old-fashioned way.

"You don't intend to wait that long, I suspect?" Marcus asked.

Wesker puffed on his cigarette one last time and flicked it into the woods. "Well, no disrespect intended, but I think I'm better qualified than most of the people your company accepts for employment."

Marcus nodded solemnly. "I'll grant that, but you are by no means unique. You are not the only genius on these grounds. You may be a step above many, but there are some individuals here you will certainly find to be your mental superiors."

"That's possible," Wesker admitted, "but only because they're older than I am. How many nineteen-year-olds do you have working here?"

"None," Marcus said.

Wesker nodded. "I think that speaks for itself."

"Not necessarily," Marcus said.

They left the shady cover of the trees and finally reached the mansion grounds. Wesker found himself on a wide cement patio bordered on both sides by an elaborate iron fence. A fountain sat in the center of the patio, spraying water into the air. Potted plants and cement benches lay along each side, and wide steps at the end led up to the mansion itself. Wesker had seen pictures of it in the recruitment materials, but in person it was so much more magnificent.

If he hadn't known better, he would have sworn the mansion was a historical relic from the times of the American Revolution. It was a masterpiece of classical architecture, with wide bay windows and intricate gables and borders along the outside walls. Wesker could only guess at the number of rooms the place contained, and had an imaginative vision of secret passageways and staircases hidden within the walls. It was the kind of awe-inspiring mansion that they simply didn't build anymore.

"Welcome to the Umbrella training facility," Marcus said.

"Not bad," Wesker said to himself.

They traversed the wide patio and headed for the rear entrance. Marcus held the glass double doors open politely and Wesker went in, stopping just a few feet inside. He found himself in a conference room much smaller than he had expected, with seats for only about twenty people. Wesker had envisioned hundreds of new employees studying and working there, with a lecture hall as large as the ones he'd seen in college. It was apparent that this class of trainees would be smaller, and therefore more competitive, than Wesker had thought. Each seat had a wide desk with a computer screen built in, the monitors currently showing the Umbrella logo, a circle divided into eighths and colored in alternating bright red and white. At the front of the room was a large mahogany lectern in front of a wide projector screen.

"This is where most of the training will take place," Marcus was saying. "Your first few classes will be on the rules and regulations of the Umbrella Corporation. The non-disclosure agreements, employee handbook materials, research divisions and work classifications, that sort of thing. It will take about a week to cover it."

"And then what?"

"And then some examinations to help isolate your skills and weaknesses. We work very hard to make sure our employees are given positions in accordance with their natural abilities. We aim to maximize everyone's potential."

"What if my potential lies in researching my own work and pursuing my own interests?"

Marcus smiled thinly. "Well then, I guess we'll have to let you do that, won't we?"

Wesker couldn't tell if the old man was patronizing him, or just being sarcastic. It was possible that he wasn't accustomed to new students displaying such brazen confidence in their own abilities, but Wesker was not about to humble himself to gain the old man's favor. He had faith in his intelligence and the fact that Marcus was not going to let him go to one of their business competitors. Marcus had to know what a valuable employee Wesker could be, and if the price of his employment was putting up with his tremendous ego, then so be it.

"Have you had dinner yet?" Marcus asked, abruptly changing the subject.

"Actually, I haven't."

"Let's stop by your room so you can drop off your things, and then we'll head to the cafeteria for something to eat."

"Sounds fine."

They walked through another set of double doors to a large, open lobby. A brilliant golden chandelier hovered over their heads, adorned with dozens of small light bulbs disguised as candles. Steps carpeted in red velvet led up the right and left to the upper wings of the mansion, and the tile floor beneath his feet was waxed to a glimmering shine so clear Wesker could see his reflection in it. Momentarily, he was once more overcome by the artistic beauty of the building. It was decorated like a royal palace more than a training center and biological laboratory. Accidental visitors to the building would probably expect to find elegantly-clad noblemen and women, not scientists in bland white lab coats.

"The brochure really doesn't do this place justice," Wesker said.

Marcus nodded, his hands folded behind his back. Wesker could envision him appreciating the beauty of the mansion like a car enthusiast basking in the glory of a fully remodeled classic Corvette. Or perhaps, swelling with pride the way the father of a sports star might. It was hard to tell what the old man was thinking.

"We may be scientists, but that does not mean we have to abandon beauty," Marcus said. "After all, science and culture are not mutually exclusive. I have a great love of both architecture and sculpture. You'll see works of art decorating the walls here."

"Most research labs are pretty sterile by comparison."

"Exactly. Wouldn't you rather work and live here than in some bland, white-washed cubicle stinking of disinfectant?"

"You offer a compelling argument," Wesker admitted.

"Your room is this way," Marcus said, heading up one of the sets of stairs.

Wesker followed him up the stairs and down a long hallway with beautiful wood-paneled walls and plush red carpet. All the doors were thick oak with gleaming brass doorknobs. Small end tables furnished the hallway in places, with old-fashioned lamps sitting atop intricately-laced doilies. And as Marcus had said, there were paintings along the walls, some of which by artists that Wesker had heard of.

"How many people are training here right now?" he asked.

"The current class of trainees is fourteen, which is a little below average. There are about fifty other scientists who've completed their training but still work here."

"How many of them live here?"

"Most of them. All new employees are required to stay here for the length of their training, and maybe thirty of the rest live here as well."

"That surprises me. Any particular reason so many decide to live here?"

"The answer should be obvious," Marcus said, stopping before one of the doors along the hallway. "If you dedicate your life to your work, wouldn't you want to live right where that work is done? Let's say 'convenience' for lack of a better word."

He opened the door and ushered Wesker inside. "This is your dormitory room, for the first few days at least. Once you've settled in and met some of your classmates, you can change rooms if you like."

The room was small but clean, and like most of the rest of the mansion, full of shining oak and mahogany furniture, including a bed, desk, and dresser. Wesker tossed his briefcase on the bed, since that was all he'd brought with him. According to the employment packet he'd received, he would be assigned everything he would need upon his arrival at the mansion, including essentials like clothes and work materials. All he'd actually bright with him were some personal papers and the clothes on his back.

He and Marcus headed back down the hallway and down the stairs to the main lobby. Wesker stuck his hands in his pockets and contented himself with admiring his surroundings. Despite his early misgivings, he was already feeling right at home here. Any company wealthy enough to make a simple training facility look like a king's palace was exactly where Wesker wanted to be.

"Do you have any other questions, Albert?" Marcus asked.

Wesker winced at the sound of his first name. "Please don't call me that. Call me Wesker. Even my parents don't call me Albert."

"What do they call you?"

"They call me by my middle name."

After an expectant pause, Marcus asked, "And your middle name is?"

"Just call me Wesker."

Marcus smiled. "All right, Wesker. Do you have any other questions?"

"Yes, actually. Why are you giving me the tour yourself? I expected some low-level office assistant to meet me at the helicopter, not you."

"I handle everything myself," Marcus explained. "I don't hire underlings to do my work for me. In fact, there are no office personnel here at all."

That genuinely surprised Wesker. "No paper-pushers?"

"None. The only people in this building are scientists. Oh, we have a live-in janitor and a few permanent security officers, but that is all."

"Who does all the paperwork? Who answers the phones?"

"Everyone is required to do all their own paperwork, but don't worry too much about that. There is less than you think. I feel that paperwork is a waste of time, so I don't require too much of it. As for the phones, security takes care of it."

"Places like this always have office workers, I'm surprised that it can function without any," Wesker said.

Marcus shrugged, apparently unconcerned. "I'm sure that other installations are loaded with them. Some Umbrella facilities have almost as many office personnel as they have scientists. But I think it's unnecessary, it only creates a meaningless bureaucracy within the company. Too many office workers creates red tape and roadblocks. I don't want anything to get in between a scientist and his science."

"That's exactly the way I feel," Wesker said. "I guess I'm just surprised that anyone in a position of authority feels the same way."

"Don't forget that I'm a scientist too," Marcus said. "I'm a scientist first and an administrator a distant second."

As they passed though the main lobby, Wesker noticed a large painting hanging above the far wall. It was a head-and-shoulders portrait of James Marcus himself. He hadn't noticed it before because it was above the doorway to the conference room, which they had entered from. When Wesker glanced at it, Marcus laughed softly.

"The one concession to my ego," he admitted. "I run this entire facility, you know. It doesn't hurt to cater to your vanity every now and then. As long as you keep it in perspective."

Wesker shrugged. "Doesn't bother me. You deserve it. Everyone gives in to vanity in one way or another."

"I've noticed that you still wear those sunglasses, for example," Marcus said.

Wesker smiled and adjusted them. "You'll never see me without them."

They walked through another doorway into a large dining room area. At one end of the L-shaped room, there was a large rectangular table covered with a white tablecloth and surrounded by enough chairs for twenty people. At the other end of the room were a few smaller plastic tables and chairs and a pair of vending machines. Through an open doorway, Wesker could see the large adjacent kitchen beyond.

Sitting at one of the plastic tables, munching on a candy bar with a text book opened in front of him, was one of the other trainees. It was the first other person besides Marcus that Wesker had seen since his arrival. He was a skinny young man with greasy black hair that dangled over the sides of his face as he read.

Marcus introduced him with a smile. "Wesker, meet William Birkin, one of the other trainees in your class."

The young man looked up as Wesker approached, his arm outstretched to shake hands. It was only then that Wesker realized just how young he was. He looked like a gangly teenager, with fresh pimples dotting his forehead and the innocent expression of youth in his gentle brown eyes.

"Young William here is only eighteen years old," Marcus said. "He's the youngest trainee we've ever had."

Suddenly, Wesker's initial sense of confidence and power drained from him like water down an open drain. "Pleased to meet you," William said, shaking his hand. But Wesker found that he had lost his voice.


	2. Chapter 2

2

With the new trainees already in their seats in the main lecture room, Dr. James Marcus walked to the lectern at the head of the room and set his notes on the top. He pressed a button on the lectern and the slide projector at the rear of the room clicked on, illuminating the screen behind him with the Umbrella logo. He surveyed the students with a critical eye, to see which ones were paying the most attention.

"Turn your computer screens on," he said as an introduction. Only a few of the trainees had not done so already, and he watched them do so quickly, now that they realized the class was under way. In his years of running the facility, Marcus had learned not to gauge his opinion of a student on his first impression of them, but on how they handled themselves in the first training class. The ones who were prepared and attentive right off the bat were usually destined for mediocrity, while the ones who showed up late and unprepared for class usually climbed the ranks quickly and eventually ran their own research teams. It seemed backwards, he knew, but that was the way it was.

He pressed the slide projector button again and the Umbrella logo switched to three words in large capital letters: DISCIPLINE. OBEDIENCE. UNITY.

"These three words are the motto of this facility," he intoned deeply. "I want you all to learn them, memorize them, and live your life by them while you stay here. Discipline, obedience, and unity. They are the characteristics by which I will evaluate you. Everything you do while you are here should be done in accordance with these simple rules."

He scanned the crowd of young faces. All of them under the age of thirty, with the prodigies Wesker and Birkin still in their teens, they were inexperienced and untested in their real abilities. In the coming weeks, Marcus would know more about them then they knew themselves, and decide just what they had to offer the company.

"Discipline is first. You are all expected to display discipline in both your personal and professional lives. I will not tolerate lack of self-control or willpower. You are employees of the Umbrella Corporation, and the way you conduct yourselves reflects on Umbrella.

"Obedience is second. You must always follow the rules and orders you are given, by me or any of your other superiors. As employees of Umbrella, you must always show obedience and loyalty to Umbrella. I will not tolerate insubordination in any form.

"Unity is third." At this, he paused to examine the faces in front of him. "I have already spoken to you all about this. While you are here, you are all equals. You are to cooperate and work together in all your endeavors, and never let your own self-interests conflict with the interests of your fellow scientists. You are one group, one cohesive unit working toward a common goal, and as such you should never let personal ambition get in your way.

"These are the three ideals you are to live by. But don't think of them as three separate rules, think of them as one all-important creed. You are always to be disciplined, obedient, and unified. Your career here depends on your adherence to that rule."

Some of the trainees, the less-creative, less-ambitious ones, nodded or gestured agreement with what he had said. Some of them might even take it to heart and sincerely try to follow the instructions. But Marcus knew they were only words, an abstract ideal far from the concrete reality. Few of the men were disciplined, a couple might be obedient, but hardly any would be truly unified. Since Umbrella specifically looked for candidates with proven ambition and creativity in their labors, Marcus sometimes felt he was telling them to follow rules in direct opposition to their very natures.

Like the young geniuses, for example. If there was anyone in the room not likely to follow orders, it would be the cocky Wesker, and if anyone was not unified with the others, it was the solitary Birkin. Both of them were brilliant, ambitious, and destined for successful careers with the company, and Marcus doubted either of them cared an ounce about discipline, obedience, or unity. In Wesker's case, he apparently cared only about himself, and in Birkin's case, he only cared about his work.

Marcus had to admit that even he didn't live up to the three words. He had been the one to come up with them as a slogan for the training facility, and he never bothered to apply them to his own work ethic. Do as I say and not as I do, he wanted to say.

The rest of the training session went smoothly, as Marcus blandly read off his notes, saying the same things he'd said to every group of new trainees for the past two decades. He wanted to get it over with as soon as possible, so he could get back downstairs to continue his work. He'd been making huge progress in the past few weeks, which frustrated him because it came right when he was busiest with the new trainees. It could not be helped, though.

After he was finished with his lecture and the obligatory question-and-answer session that followed, he gave each of them the Umbrella Employee Handbook and dismissed them. He gathered his notes and stuck them in his briefcase before heading out the back door to the patio behind the mansion, quickly escaping the room before any of the students had time to ask him something.

Outside, the sun was beginning its long descent behind the mountains to the west, and temperatures were dropping accordingly. Marcus walked briskly down the sidewalk along the south side of the building toward the astronomical observatory. It was a two-story tall domed tower with a large rotating telescope at the top. Marcus always wondered why it had been built, since Umbrella had no financial interest in astronomy and neither did he. It remained unused for the most part, since the scientists working at the mansion had little interest in or time for stargazing. As far as Marcus was concerned, it was only an expensive prop designed to cover up the real work done at the mansion. It was a mask, a decoy.

There was a balcony on the mansion's second floor that connected the tower's main observation room to some of the mansion's offices, but Marcus wasn't heading that way. He entered the tower through its rusty doors and, ignoring the circular staircase leading up to the second floor, went directly to the elevator that took up much of the space inside the first floor of the tower. Instead of up and down buttons on the panel beside it, there was only a numerical pad. Marcus entered in his five-digit code and the door hissed open.

He stepped inside and the door closed, as the elevator transported him underground.


	3. Chapter 3

3

William Birkin spent most of his time in the mansion's extensive library and research center. He could burn through a 400-page advanced chemistry textbook in two days, sometimes stopping to take notes, but usually not bothering. There wasn't much the books had to offer him that he didn't already know. The biology books were more informative, since Birkin's scientific background was more chemical than biological, and in particular, the cellular biology textbooks gave him a wealth of new information. The library here at the mansion was much better suited to his interests than the libraries at his high school and the two college's he'd attended. He was already coming up with new theories about how to combine his work in chemistry with what he was learning in cellular biology.

When he was a child, Birkin was a classic example of the nerdy kid in his neighborhood. When his schoolmates were saving up their allowances to buy a skateboard or new baseball mitt, young William was saving his allowance to buy a chemistry set. He would walk seven blocks to visit the local library, where he could learn more about science. From the age of four, he knew what he was going to be when he grew up.

Although his grades in history and english were below average, in science and mathematics he was the first in his class. For his fifth-grade science fair, while other kids were making vinegar-and-baking soda volcanoes and cheap electromagnets, William duplicated the famous 1953 experiment by Stanley Miller (based on the work of Harold Urey, John Haldane, and Aleksander Oparin) where amino acids were created out of a simple mixture of hydrogen, water, methane, and ammonia. Needless to say, he won the science fair.

He graduated high school at fourteen and college at seventeen, and spent a year doing post-graduate work at the University of Chicago (the same school Stanley Miller had performed his experiment at) before being approached by Umbrella. They offered a healthy paycheck and the ability to pursue whatever research he wanted, and he gladly accepted the offer.

He turned the page of the scientific journal he was reading and was awakened from his study when someone knocked on his door. It surprised him that anyone wanted to see him. Since his arrival at the mansion a few days before, the only person who talked to him was Dr. Marcus.

He got off his bed and opened the door. In the hallway, looking to the left and right as if worried someone would see him, was the other teenager at the mansion, Albert Wesker. As always, his sunglasses were on. Birkin had yet to see him without them.

"Hey, what is it?" Birkin asked.

"Can I come in?" Wesker asked.

Birkin, surprised at the request, opened the door wider and Wesker made his way inside. He quickly scanned the room and sighed. Birkin closed the door.

"Can I do something for you?" he asked.

"So what do you think of this place?" Wesker asked, instead of answering. He crossed his arms and leaned against Birkin's desk, which was currently covered in a pile of papers and books opened to bookmarked pages.

Birkin sat back on his bed and stretched his legs out, putting the journal back in his lap. "Seems like pretty much what I expected. A bunch of uptight losers with Masters degrees who think that somehow makes them smarter than me."

"What about Marcus?"

"Gives me the spooks, to be honest. Seemed pretty nice when I first met him, but I think he's got some issues."

Wesker nodded. "Have you seen that astronomy tower out back?"

Birkin smiled and nodded as well, keeping his eyes on the text in front of him. "There's an elevator inside it. He's got a secret underground lab, doesn't he?"

"That's the way I look at it. Now I already know that there are science labs underneath this mansion. It's where all the work is done once we finish training. The question is whether that lab connects to the others."

"I have no idea," Birkin said.

Wesker sighed again, visibly frustrated by something. He looked out the window at the night sky. "So you're only eighteen, huh?"

At that, Birkin could not resist laughing out loud. "I knew it!" he exclaimed. Wesker turned and glared at him, but Birkin didn't care. He snapped the journal closed and tossed it next to him. "I knew that's why you came to see me!"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Wesker said quickly, defensively.

"I could see it in your face the first time I met you," Birkin said, a wide grin on his young face. "When Marcus told you how young I was, it looked like he'd just punched you in the stomach!"

"Just surprised, that's all."

"You thought you were the youngest one here?"

"Of course I did."

"Does it hurt to know you're not?"

Even behind the dark sunglasses, Birkin could almost see Wesker's eyes as they glowed in anger. It was almost funny to see someone as controlled and reserved as Wesker on the verge of losing his cool. Birkin was observant enough to know that for some people, their cool is all they have to fall back on.

"Don't worry about it," Birkin said, softening the blow. "I don't think anyone else knows how old either of us is. Marcus hasn't announced our ages in class or anything."

"The other guys know we're younger, though."

"Yeah, so who cares which of us is the youngest? They're jealous of both of us."

"You've noticed that, huh?"

"I'm not blind." When Wesker didn't respond, Birkin continued. "All that 'unity' crap that Marcus gave us the other day won't mean a thing, you know. Those other guys aren't gonna treat us as equals. To them, we're just a couple of punk kids. They won't cooperate with us."

"Well, who says we have to cooperate with them?" Wesker asked.

"I think Marcus would."

Wesker shook his head. "Marcus won't make us do anything. He knows that you and me are the smartest two people here. Those other guys are just taking up space as far as he's concerned."

"You think so?"

"No one else in this group can compete with us."

Birkin thought about it. He was no expert at gauging other people's intelligence and did not claim to be. But in the few days he had been at the mansion, he could already sense how he and Wesker were on a different intellectual wavelength than the other trainees. He didn't know what it was precisely. Maybe something in the way they talked, in the way they approached the subject matter, their opinions on what was discussed in class. It was hard to pinpoint where the difference lay, but it was what separated the people who were interested in science from the people who loved it.

Some of the other men at the mansion seemed to view chemistry and biology as their job. It was a career, not a lifestyle. Science was how they made their living, but after the job was done, they did something else for fun and recreation. For Birkin, science was the recreation that he also happened to make money at. He lived his work.

He didn't think it was that intense for Wesker, but even Wesker, in his own self-important, arrogant way, loved the science as much as Birkin did. They just approached their love affair from different angles.

"So what does all this mean?" Birkin asked after a few moments. Wesker was right, but did being right amount to anything worthwhile? Did it change their situation?

"We have an insight," Wesker said, tapping his temple with a forefinger. "We have the advantage over the others. We know that we've been chosen for better things."

"I don't see where you're going with this."

"I'm saying that we don't have to play their game. They aren't training us, they're just testing us. Marcus is testing all the new employees to see how they fit into the hierarchy, that's all this is. It's a stress test."

"So how does that change things? We still have to pass the test, don't we?"

"We've already passed it," Wesker said, "Because we figured it out. Tomorrow, I'm going down into the labs and getting started with what I want to do. I'm not even going to class anymore."

"You're taking a risk," Birkin said, wondering if Wesker was even being serious. If he was, then he was even more arrogant than Birkin thought he was.

"Marcus is looking for leaders. Going to class just makes us followers. We're still young, we haven't been tamed by the establishment. We can think outside the box. All those losers out there have been institutionalized. They're accepting the pattern because they're used to it."

Birkin studied his new compatriot, the only peer he had. Wesker was smart, maybe as smart as Birkin was, but he was rebellious, and he was making a whole mess of assumptions about Marcus' intentions and Birkin's judgment. Wesker was the one who hadn't been tamed, he was the one thinking outside the box. Birkin had never considered skipping his training or jumping ahead without explicit permission from Marcus.

"So why are you telling me this?" he asked. "Why not just skip the training yourself and leave me up here with the others? It would make you look better than me."

Wesker spread his hands. It was involuntary body language, a gesture that he was not carrying any weapons. It meant he wanted to be trusted. "I'm just giving you a chance. You're like me, I wanted to let you know."

"You won't do it without me."

Wesker's hands dropped. "Even if I'm right, if you don't come along, Marcus might think I jumped the gun."

"He'll think you were getting too greedy, you mean."

"Are you coming or not?"

Birkin took a breath and rubbed his chin. Did he really want to keep attending those lame training sessions when there was more important work to be done? Wesker was undoubtedly right about the two of them being smarter than the others, and he was probably right about Marcus' expectations of them. He could get started on his own work tomorrow, and who knew what kind of research materials would be available in the labs that were not available in the library here in the upper part of the mansion? There was so much more to learn.

"All right," he said finally. "I'll do it."


	4. Chapter 4

4

James Marcus sat in the comfortable, expensive leather chair with his hands in his lap, not saying anything. Across the wide mahogany desk in front of him sat Dr. Ozwell Spencer, who at the moment was engaged in a thin pile of neatly stacked papers. Marcus marveled at the pristine neatness of the desktop; not a single item was out of place, not a single pencil, not a stray paperclip, not even a speck of dust intruded upon the spotless, organized surface. The order of the desk was indicative of the person. Ozwell Spencer was a supremely ordered man.

At the moment, he was immersed in the progress reports of the newest group of trainees at the training facility. Thin, wire-rimmed glasses were perched at the edge of his long nose as his steely eyes scanned the information. His hands were like talons, gripping the edge of the paper. His mouth was small and tightly closed, his lips pursed.

"So, James," he said slowly, "How well are the new ones doing this year, do you think?" His voice was cultured and easy to listen to, in contrast to his harsh appearance, and made Marcus think of some well-educated British butler. The clipped accent was silky and deceiving.

"We have a few promising candidates," he replied. After so many years of experience dealing with Spencer, he knew to give short answers.

"Yes, you have singled out Albert Wesker for rapid promotion. He has the characteristics we desire, that is certain."

"William Birkin as well."

Spencer glanced at the papers on the desk. "I haven't gotten to his report yet."

Since Spencer hadn't asked a question, Marcus said nothing more. It was wise only to speak when spoken to. Despite the generally-accepted knowledge in the labs that Marcus and Spencer were old friends, the two of them had never shared a friendly moment in almost forty years of working together. They were fellow scientists at best, but most of the time their relationship was purely employer/employee. Spencer was the boss, and Marcus was just another underling. The fact that Marcus was now in charge of the training facility and Spencer's administrative equal did nothing to alter their relationship.

"When are you going to promote them?" Spencer asked, not taking his attention off the paper in his hand.

"Soon. A month from now, at the latest."

"No one has completed training that quickly."

"They've already completed training," Marcus said. "Both of them are already working in the preliminary labs."

"Did they act independently?"

"I don't think so. I suspect Wesker was anxious to move on, and convinced Birkin to join him. Wesker is the more ambitious one."

Spencer nodded and started reading the next sheet.

This was how most of their meetings went, Marcus thought glumly. He had work to do down in the labs – important work – and Spencer was keeping him here like a student in the principal's office. Was the old man trying to sweat him? Marcus wondered often at Spencer's motives, but always came to the decision that Spencer simply had no understanding of anyone else's needs but his own. He wanted Marcus there to ask him the occasional question regarding the reports, and so Marcus had to be there. What Marcus wanted or needed was inconsequential.

Part of the problem, and the most basic reason Marcus and Spencer could never truly see eye to eye, was that Spencer had abandoned his once-promising career as a scientist to embrace his new role as an administrator. When the Umbrella Corporation grew to the point that a large upper-management class became a necessity, Spencer allowed himself to be promoted to Project Manager and became assimilated into the bureaucracy. Marcus, even when he could no longer prevent his promotion into upper-management, still retained his primary interest in science and spent most of his time working in the labs. Spencer, on the other hand, had not done any real science since he was chosen to run the Arklay Labs, close to twenty-five years ago. And now, he was purely an administrator, not even a scientist in name any more.

At one time, the two of them followed almost identical career paths. How had Spencer strayed so badly? Why would a man with such a dedicated and profound attachment to science throw it all away for the promise of management? Marcus, in this way, had no real respect for Spencer. He viewed the man as a traitor to the cause.

"Are they mentally prepared for the level of work done in the main labs?" Spencer asked.

"Wesker is, definitely. Birkin might be a touch naive, but he should adapt quickly enough. I don't anticipate any problems."

"Good. Good. I'm glad to hear it."

"Do you think I should proceed?"

Spencer eyed him over the top of the paper he was holding. His eyes were narrowed and sharp, his voice coldly neutral, as if he was offended by the question. "Determining their acceptability is your responsibility, James. I have never met the candidates, so I cannot judge them."

Marcus nodded. "I was just asking because they are so young."

The response seemed to satisfy Spencer. "Ah, yes. Both of them still in their teens. If they are as talented as their files indicate, and as ambitious as you claim, then by all means go ahead and bring them in."

"Am I excused? I have work to get to."

Spencer didn't respond for a few moments, and then sighed. "Yes, go if you must. Are you making much progress with your new lines of research?"

"Yes, quite a lot. That's why I'm anxious to return."

"When will we be given the details of your new work?" Sometimes, to Marcus' constant irritation, Spencer used the plural "we" to mean the company as a whole.

Marcus shrugged lightly. "Give me six months."

"Keep me informed."

Marcus nodded and got up from the chair. He closed the door to the office when he left, leaving Spencer in cold silence. For some minutes, he continued reading the progress reports, adjusting his glasses every now and then. When he was finished, he restacked the papers and set them neatly on the edge of his desk, for his secretary to shred later that day.

He pressed a button on the intercom, a silver speaker resting on the desk top. His secretary's tinny voice came forth. "Yes, Dr. Spencer?"

Spencer leaned back in his chair and gazed out the large windows behind him at the Arklay Mountains surrounding the estate. "Has Dr. Marcus left the building?"

"Yes, he has. He left some minutes ago."

"Notify the security personnel at the other lab. I want them to keep a close eye on Dr. Marcus from now on. I want detailed reports as to his movements and activities. But they are not to let Dr. Marcus know about this."

"Yes, Dr. Spencer. Will that be all?"

"One more thing, Madeleine. When Mr. Warren arrives, call me and send him right to my office."

"Yes, Dr. Spencer."


	5. Chapter 5

5

The laboratory complex built under the mansion could well have been any scientific lab anywhere across the country. Sterile white hallways and simple, undecorated labs were the norm there, in complete contrast to the lavish, artistic nature of the mansion above. The lab had one purpose, one function, and that was intense, dedicated scientific study. Marcus made that very clear from the first day. The other scientists down in the labs reflected that ideal, in their behavior, in the way they dressed, in every facet of their personality or lack thereof. The researchers were like clones in white lab coats. Even Wesker and Birkin slipped easily into the mold after a few days, enfolded in the peaceful tranquility of advanced biological research. But they could not help but hold onto a glimmer of their personal identity; Wesker still wore his reflective sunglasses everywhere, and Birkin wore a pair of blue hightops in favor of the brown dress shoes the rest of the scientists wore.

There were about twenty other scientists in the lab, but neither Wesker nor Birkin made any effort to befriend them or get to know them better. Half the time, they didn't even know their names. From the first, Wesker and Birkin were in charge, although it took several days to familiarize themselves with the equipment and proper lab procedures. After that, the other men there were nothing more than the hired help. Marcus must have prepared them for it, because none of them showed the slightest resentment at being told what to do by a teenager.

Wesker had a group of lab assistants assigned to him, but only a limited amount of freedom. He could not engage in whatever research he liked, he had to work on some aspect of the work already being done. But the work there was far beyond his expectations. More than once, he found himself awed by the advancements Umbrella was making there.

"I didn't even know that was possible," he muttered occasionally.

Birkin explained it to him one afternoon. "There are two kinds of scientists in the world," he said over a cup of coffee. "Those employed by private companies, and those employed by colleges and universities. Private companies are always on the cutting edge of science because they have a financial interest in what their science creates."

"So do universities," Wesker said.

"Not to the same extent. Universities don't make new products, they don't create new uses for science. They merely make discoveries and study things. That's because they aren't in it to make money, they're in it to learn more about the world. Universities encourage science for academic reasons, companies encourage it for financial reasons."

"I understand that. But it doesn't explain why the work done here is so far ahead of what I learned at college. I mean, this place is light years ahead of what they're doing at MIT."

"That's because Umbrella, and other companies like it, have a vested interest in keeping their discoveries to themselves. They don't publish academic journals to announce their findings, they keep everything internal."

"But wouldn't that inhibit scientific growth?" Wesker asked. "The more people working on a problem, the greater the chance that one of them will find the answer. Ten research facilities working independently could never make as much progress as ten facilities working together."

"Exactly," Birkin replied. "If Umbrella shared all their research with everyone else, then it would level the playing field. More discoveries would result as a whole, but Umbrella would lose their intellectual property, they would lose the edge. If they were only interested in the science, they might do it, but this is a company, remember. They're out to make a profit."

"I don't see what that has to do with it," Wesker admitted, getting frustrated. Birkin had an annoying habit of circling around a point without ever actually making it. Wesker felt like an idiot because he had trouble following the arguments, and that infuriated him.

"Universities and colleges only care about scientific progress," Birkin said. "So they share all their information, because of what you just said. With more minds on the problem, the greater chance of success. Each group can build on the work of the groups before it."

"I know that," Wesker said.

"But with a company like this, they don't care about knowledge, they care about property and profit. If they make some discovery that no one else has made, they have a competitive edge. So they hold onto their secrets. Why do you think they made us sign all those non-disclosure agreements when they hired us? Why do you think this lab is hidden under a mansion in the middle of nowhere?"

"I know all that," Wesker repeated. "I'm not talking about the difference between a college and a corporation. I'm asking how Umbrella can be this far ahead of everyone else in the first place. Umbrella is one company working on its own, and it can somehow stay ahead of all the other scientists in the rest of the world? All the other scientific research teams in all the universities in the world can't match the technological and theoretical discoveries of this one company?"

Birkin smiled and shook his head. "I don't know, man. It's all about that competitive edge. Umbrella made some discovery that no one else has made, and they keep advancing on it while everyone else is left in the dust."

"What discovery?" Wesker asked, throwing his hands into the air.

That silenced Birkin, at least momentarily. The two of them sat across from each other at the break room table and pondered it silently. What discovery indeed? Umbrella had some kind of advantage, some kind of secret breakthrough, that led them to further discoveries and advances that other scientific laboratories could only dream of. It stunned Wesker to think that the technology at MIT was supposed to be state-of-the-art, and it was dwarfed by the technology in this laboratory.

For a second, he felt sincere sympathy for the poor fools who chose to enter grad school. It would kill them to know what they were missing. He only felt it for a second though. He was too caught up in the excitement of his own research to worry too much about how far behind his contemporaries were. Sympathy was never his strong suit anyway.

His own work at the lab consisted of studying the effects of certain synthesized enzymes on different multicelled bacteria. To a layman, it probably sounded boring, but Wesker was fascinated with it because the enzymes were of a type he had never heard of. The enzyme could initiate the rebuilding of the cellular wall in certain strains of bacteria after they'd been damaged. Simply put, it could heal the bacteria, reforming the wall before the interior cellular fluid could leak out. Wesker was stunned by the ramifications. If they could figure out the method the enzyme used, they could quite possibly create an altered enzyme designed to repair different kinds of bacteria. They could tailor the enzymes to work with different cell types, possibly even human cell types. The thought amazed him; the end of cellular damage!

When he asked where the original enzyme came from, none of his assistants knew the answer. It had been brought over from another lab about a year before, but they didn't know which lab. All of his inquiries came back empty. It was a miracle enzyme from nowhere.

Birkin was working on a similar project. His subject was the same enzyme, but instead of seeing how it affected strains of bacteria, Birkin was studying how environmental changes affected the enzyme. It was not as important, theoretically, as Wesker's work, but Birkin found satisfaction in it just the same. Learning heat and cold thresholds, acidic and basic reaction properties, and related effects were equally fascinating because of the mysterious origin of the enzyme.

"Where do you think it came from?" Birkin asked one evening. He was nursing another large cup of coffee, which he often did in the evenings. He drank several cups throughout the day, keeping him effectively buzzed with caffeine and capable of working late into the evening. He rarely went to bed before two in the morning, and was always up at seven, even on weekends.

Wesker leaned back in his cushioned leather chair and set his feet up on his desk. Casually, he lit a cigarette and shook out the match. Birkin had caffeine and Wesker had nicotine, it was all the same in the end.

"Don't know," he answered. "But it has to have a biological source."

"You think so?"

"Has to be. There's no way they created this on its own, it's far too effective. They got it from somewhere, some kind of biological side project. Something either excretes the enzyme or creates it internally."

"But what could excrete an enzyme like this? It's like nothing I've studied before."

Wesker chuckled. "Tell me about it. That stuff is like magic in a test tube. The potential for medical research is astounding."

"You think maybe it's a mutation? Something out of left field?"

"Possible, but I still think it's too effective to be accidental. I think they found it somewhere, or saw evidence of its effects, and were able to synthesize it. But where in the hell do you find an effect like this in nature?"

"You don't," Birkin said bluntly. "Spontaneous self-healing? I don't think so."

Wesker took a few long drags on the cigarette. Spontaneous self-healing. It worked on bacteria, but would it work on something significantly larger, like an animal? Would the enzyme heal a complicated organism?

"It can repair the cell walls of damaged bacteria cells," Birkin said, as if to himself. "But what if the bacteria is dead?"

"No effect," Wesker said, blowing out smoke. "We've tried it. Once the cell is dead, the enzyme can't do anything. The cell has to be alive to be healed."

"Have you narrowed the time frame?"

"It's hard to do when you're working with bacteria, but no we haven't. If the enzyme is already in the environment when the bacteria is damaged, it will repair it. We're trying to see if rapid introduction of the enzyme right after the bacteria is damaged will have the same rapid effect, but's tough to time it just right."

"Any theories about the long-term?"

Wesker laughed at that. "I always have long-term theories," he said, pointing at Birkin with the cigarette. "Honestly though, I think this thing is fascinating, but unless we can magnify the effects and duplicate it in different kinds of cells, it's pretty useless. As far as humans are concerned, I mean."

"It could lead to a breakthrough, though."

"No doubt. But by itself, the enzyme can't really help us. It will only heal individual bacteria damaged at the cellular level. As far as we can determine, it won't work on large masses of cells, like an organ. And to be honest, it only appears to repair certain kinds of damage. So medically speaking, it serves no purpose."

Birkin clenched his fists excitedly and pounded them lightly on the tabletop. "It has such potential, though. It could revolutionize medical science."

"Screw that," Wesker said bluntly. "It could change the world, if ..."

"... if we could learn how it works," Birkin finished. "It's like having a treasure chest filled with the meaning of life, and not having the key to open it."

"Something like that," Wesker said, blowing out a stream of smoke. He dropped his cigarette, now down to almost nothing, into an glass on the desk beside him. It fizzled in the small amount of liquid still in the bottom. "But I have a feeling that it's only the tip of the iceberg."

"What do you mean?" Birkin asked.

Wesker tapped his pack of cigarettes against the arm of the chair, as if pondering whether or not to light another one. He rarely smoked two in a row and didn't like to. He felt it betrayed nervousness. "I mean that we still haven't been told where it came from."

"I know. Even Marcus won't tell me."

"Well, it came from somewhere in Umbrella. One of their labs created it somehow."

Birkin shrugged. "So? We knew that already."

"Well," Wesker continued, "if they have some top-secret lab working on this sort of thing, and they came up with this enzyme for us to study, who knows what else they're working on. Who knows what else they've created?"


	6. Chapter 6

6

If asked, Marcus probably would not have been able to say why he had chosen leeches as the hosts for his experimental virus. It was true that they were a simpler organism than say, a rabbit, but the complexity of the host organism had not been his concern. Most scientists would have chosen a more normal, less repulsive creature, but the nature of the virus in question sometimes changed the host in unpredictable ways, making some of the more common lab animals unsuitable for the experiment. Leeches retained their general characteristics, making them acceptable hosts, but something else in their nature made them attractive to Marcus. He could not put his finger on it, however. They just seemed right for the experiment.

The experiment wasn't a normal experiment. Usually in an experiment, there is an intended outcome, a hypothesis that is tested, some question that the experiment is designed to answer. But Marcus had long ago abandoned the conventional scientific method. His experiment had no hypothesis, no goal. He was performing it simply to see what would happen.

His alarm clock woke him early, snapping him away from a pleasant dream. He'd been in the middle of the ocean, swimming in the clearest, brightest blue water he'd ever seen. Now he was staring at the ceiling of his small room down in his laboratory beneath the astronomy tower, the only light coming from the illuminated numbers on the alarm clock. He sat up in bed and pressed the button on the clock to stop the alarm. It was five in the morning.

Still in almost-complete darkness, he got up and dressed slowly. Gray trousers, a white undershirt, and his white lab coat. He slid his feet into slippers and left the room.

The laboratory greeted him warmly. A long desk was built along one wall, and in between the four computer monitors, it was covered in a mess of computer printouts, photographs, drawings, notes, and assorted papers. The monitors showed choppy three-dimensional diagrams of various cellular types and chemical bonds, rotating slowly. Along the other wall was a long glass terrarium, one half lower than the other and filled with murky water. The room was still dark as well, illuminated only by small neon lights in the back of the terrarium and along the computer desk.

Marcus flipped on the light switch, flooding the room in bright fluorescent light. He shuffled over to the terrarium and kneeled in front of it, looking through the thick, reinforced glass. A thin smile curved his lips.

Inside, seven of his leeches were slowly oozing their way around the terrarium. The leeches had grown since the beginning of the experiment, and were now about the size of a softball. They excreted a thick slime wherever they went, and the inside of the terrarium was coated with it. The remains of some unidentified animal lay in the corner, reduced to nothing but bones and fur. In another corner were some eggs, about the size of golf balls, glistening and pulsing rhythmically with a layer of clear ooze themselves. Marcus could almost make out the leeches moving and slithering around inside.

"Good morning," he said.

As if in response, the leeches in the tank slithered toward him and pressed against the glass. On the underside of their bodies, he could see their small mouths lined with yellow, needle-like teeth. He pressed his own hand against the glass in greeting.

"Are you hungry?" It was a silly question and he knew it. The leeches were always hungry. They were ravenous.

He went out of the lab and down the hall to a storage/supply room that he had refurnished into a room for the other lab animals. Rabbits, mostly, but he had some cats, some birds, and even two small monkeys. All in cages stacked up against the wall, he fed and watered them twice a day and cleaned the cages each evening. Normally, it was the kind of work for a lab assistant or, even better, an intern, but Marcus preferred not to let anyone else into this particular lab, so he did it all himself.

He opened a cage and took out a small cat. It purred gently when he picked it up, and hung from his hand like a wet rag as he carried it down the hall. It was light gray with yellow eyes, very adorable-looking, even though Marcus didn't like cats much.

He dropped it into the terrarium through the sliding hatch on top, and then sat in a chair to watch the show. The cat hissed frantically as soon as it saw the leeches and immediately backed itself into a corner. The leeches surrounded it and then attacked, leaping onto it from all sides and tearing into the soft flesh. The cat was dead in less than minute.

Marcus, his clipboard in his lap, scribbled notes on a sheet of paper. He was especially impressed with the leeches growing ability to act as a group and attack in unison. In his first test with live prey, the leeches would attack one at a time, sometimes fighting each other to get to the prey. A rabbit had lasted almost ten minutes before getting worn down. But now they acted as one, and Marcus wore his pencil down to a nub writing down ideas and notes. Their ability to jump was also fascinating, since it was a skill they had apparently improvised when Marcus had placed a bird into the terrarium; the only way they could reach the prey was to jump for it.

They were learning, as incredible as it seemed. In addition to their increased size, strength, and agility, the leeches had increased intelligence. Marcus had stumbled onto his discovery partially by accident, partially by design. He'd been working on it for almost two years now, and the results were simply amazing, far better than anything he had anticipated.

Did anyone else in Umbrella know what he knew? He had been experimenting with their "special vaccine" for several years now, as had most of the top researchers in the Umbrella Corporation, and no one, to his knowledge, had made as much progress in understanding the course of the mutation and the biological ramifications of enhanced infection. Most animals died after exposure, or worse, and even the advanced research facility in Antarctica had not yet unraveled the method by which the "special vaccine" infected its hosts and initiated the rate of sudden mutation. One incident at the Antarctica base had inspired Marcus' work with the leeches, but he would not admit that to anyone.

The leeches were his and his alone. Eventually, when he had confirmed his ideas about the "special vaccine," he would reveal his work to Spencer, but it was still too early for that. The leeches were not yet ready. It was obvious now that the leeches could learn, but could they be trained? That was Marcus' next experiment. His work with the trainees was over, for the most part, granting him more time to spend here in the lab, with his leeches. No one disturbed him here, and no one questioned his activities, so he could work with impunity. He could spend all the time he needed working with the leeches and the "special vaccine" that spawned them.

The special vaccine called Progenitor.


	7. Chapter 7

7

Marcus punched in the access code and the doors slid open soundlessly. Wesker and Birkin, standing behind him, tried to look over his shoulders to see the hallway beyond the door, without trying to look obvious about it. Marcus walked through the doorway and the two of them followed quickly. They were now in the secondary lab compound; Wesker and Birkin had been promoted.

"I probably don't even have to tell you this," Marcus said, "but you two are the youngest men ever to be promoted to this level. I hope you won't disappoint me."

"We won't," Wesker said casually. He glanced at Birkin and then said, "Well, I won't at least. I can't vouch for this other guy."

"Very funny," Birkin muttered, looking through glass windows into some of the lab rooms they were walking past.

Marcus stopped at a hallway intersection and folded his hands behind his back, turning to face them. "This is called the Alpha lab. Everything that goes on here is top secret and confidential, as I've already told you. Although you are still free to associate with the other scientists from the training lab upstairs, you are not permitted to discuss your work with any of them. You may only discuss your work with other scientists from this level. Is that understood?"

Both Wesker and Birkin nodded. Wesker kept his expression neutral, trying to act indifferent to the whole thing, hiding his eyes behind those reflective sunglasses, but Birkin's attention was elsewhere. He looked up and down the hallways and into each lab he could see, visibly excited about the prospect of working here from now on.

"I'll be honest with you," Marcus said. "Despite what you think, neither of you are truly prepared for this promotion. I think each of you need at least six more months in the other lab. But I'm advancing you because you work well together. In other words, the two of you are qualified as a team, but not individually."

"Does that mean we have to work together here?" Birkin asked.

Marcus shook his head. "Of course not. You may pursue your own research. But I'd prefer if you would confer with each other frequently. Two heads are better than one, as they say."

"If you say so," Birkin said.

"Is this where the enzyme was developed?" Wesker asked suddenly.

Marcus knew the question was coming, so he did not show any surprise at being asked, to Wesker's disappointment. "The enzyme was not created here, it was created in another laboratory."

"Where?"

Marcus remained passive. "Antarctica," he said casually. "Do you feel better now, knowing where it came from? Or are you going to ask to be transferred there?"

Wesker shrugged, trying to make light of the situation. He could tell he had crossed a line somewhere, only he wasn't sure which line. "Hey, I'll go wherever the action is."

"The action is here," Marcus said, and turned on his heel. He headed off down a different hallway, and the two rookies followed him. Birkin gave Wesker a harsh look, but Wesker chose to ignore it.

"That enzyme you were working on is a joke, gentlemen," Marcus said, surprising them both and returning their attention to what he was saying. "It is a waste product. A leftover residue. Worthless, except as an instructional tool. We give it to new employees to see what they can do with it, to see how well they can manipulate its effects. That was the real test you were taking, and you didn't even realize it."

"Worthless?" Birkin sputtered. He sped up until he was walking beside Marcus. "How can it be worthless? It's revolutionary!" He waved his arms, gesturing excitedly. "You could prevent cell damage! Reverse it, even! How can you throw away something with such potential?"

Wesker said nothing, already imagining what Marcus would say next. Birkin lost track of the big picture sometimes, overestimating and overreacting about the importance of some minor detail while missing the larger effect. He had trouble seeing the trees for the forest. Wesker did not have this problem, and so Marcus' next words were not as shocking as they probably would have been otherwise.

"We've already prevented cell damage, William," he said off-handedly. "I thought you would have guessed that by now."

Birkin stopped dead in his tracks, and his jaw almost hit the floor. "You've already ..." he started, completely baffled. Wesker, not even slowing down, grabbed Birkin's arm to pull him forward and get him walking again. Marcus didn't even look back.

"It's like I told you," Wesker said. "That enzyme was just the tip of the iceberg. We're in this deep now, boy."

"They've prevented cell damage," Birkin said, as if to himself. "If they've gone that far with their research, why haven't they made it public? What could they still be working on?"

"I'm sure he's going to tell us," Wesker said.

Marcus finally looked behind him. "Very good, Wesker. You're on top of things today."

"Well, one of us has to be," he said, motioning toward Birkin, who shook his arm loose of Wesker's grasp and hurried forward until he was side-by-side with Marcus again.

"How did they do it?" he asked urgently. "Did they solve the enzyme's method or just build on it? Did they get it to work on individual cells, or larger masses?"

"Please, William," Marcus said gently, seemingly not bothered by Birkin's behavior. "I already told you, the enzyme is a by-product, wasted material. It is the result of the work done here, not the cause of it."

"A by-product of what?"

"I'm getting to that, William."

At the end of the long, white hallway was a set of double doors with the words "Viral Containment Area" over them in bold red letters. As they passed through the door, Birkin looked up at the words, mouthing them to himself.

The room was smaller than Wesker had expected. It was about fifty feet square, brightly lit, the lighting made brighter because everything was white, even the chairs. The back wall was one large glass shelving unit full of test tubes and beakers and vials filled with any number of chemicals or compounds. To the left was a row of computer monitors and various chemical apparatus. And to the right ... to the right was the biological Holy Grail.

Wesker walked forward to get a better look. Through a window of reinforced glass was a chemical rack of stainless steel. Set into it were a dozen or more test tubes filled with a glimmering silver liquid like mercury. Robotic arms were built into the ceiling of the small chamber with controls on the opposite side of the glass. Wesker stood directly in front of the window and stared at the special containment area and the shining test tubes encased within. Birkin joined him, his eyes ablaze with wonder.

"It's called the Progenitor," Marcus said from behind them, his voice sounding far away. "It was first created in 1965 by a brilliant scientist named Alexander Ashford. He's one of the founders of the modern Umbrella Corporation. All of the work done at this laboratory, and the more advanced lab in Antarctica, revolves around the Progenitor, and even after twenty years we still have not fully unlocked its biological capabilities."

Wesker and Birkin said nothing, staring at the test tubes of Progenitor. It was behind glass, and only robotic arms could come in contact with it. Finally, Birkin realized what that implied. He cast a worried look at Marcus.

Marcus nodded, as if reading their minds. "It's a virus. It's extremely contagious and extremely dangerous. We take the highest precautions when dealing with it."

Birkin looked from Marcus back to the containment area, then back at Marcus. "How can it be dangerous? If it can prevent cellular damage, if it can do any of the things you've hinted at, how can it be dangerous?"

"It's lethal," Marcus stressed. "If released into the environment, it would undoubtedly kill everyone here. Are you beginning to understand what I'm trying to tell you?"

Wesker stepped closer until his face was an inch from the glass. He stared at the silver test tubes and smiled to himself. "It cures the disease by killing the host," he said, and then laughed as if he'd made a joke. Birkin stared at him in disbelief, and at the Progenitor in barely disguised terror.

"Something like that," Marcus said.

"It's a virus?" Birkin said, still trying to overcome his initial shock. "How did Ashford discover it? Where did he discover it?"

"He created it, not discovered it," Marcus corrected. "The Progenitor was created in a laboratory."

"In 1965? The technology didn't exist back then!"

Wesker sighed and took his gaze away from the Progenitor. The shimmering silver test tubes were like hypnotic eyes calling to him. Here they were, being shown the greatest biological secret in the world, and Birkin could not just accept what his eyes were showing him. He insisted on doubting the reality of the situation because it scared him. Wesker could see it in Birkin's wide, panicky eyes; the thought of a biological paradox like this – a violently lethal virus with the potential to cure cellular diseases – terrified him to the core. It was like discovering the fountain of youth only to find out it was full of sulphuric acid.

"I don't care how he made it," Wesker said, the sound of his voice apparently bringing Birkin down a notch. "I want to know what it does. I want to know how it works. I want to know everything there is to know about this virus."

"In time, you will," Marcus said. He looked at Birkin, who was staring into the containment area in equal parts amazement and horror. His breathing had become ragged and he had begun sweating. "What about you, William? Do you want to continue your education and help in the Progenitor research, or have I misjudged your character?"

Birkin turned quickly and shot back, "Of course I want to learn about it! It's just ..." he paused and glanced back at the silver test tubes, his voice becoming softer, "it's just a lot more than I expected."

Marcus closed his eyes and nodded. "Understandable. Shall we continue?"

"Yes," Wesker said immediately.

They left the lab and went back down the hall they had come from. As they walked, Marcus spoke as if giving a lecture.

"The Progenitor's main function is primarily regenerative in nature. When living tissue is exposed to it, the tissue is changed drastically. It heals remarkably fast, and as I've already said, cellular damage is repaired almost instantaneously. The Progenitor is a virus, and when it invades the cells, like all other viruses, it turns the cells into little virus factories. But in doing so, it makes the cells incredibly strong, giving them this amazing healing factor. But again, like most other viruses, if left unchecked it can kill healthy tissue."

"That's what I don't understand," Birkin interrupted. "If it heals the cells, how can it wind up killing them?"

"It kills the host," Marcus said. "It does not kill the cells."

Birkin shook his head. "I don't understand–"

"You will, if you listen." Birkin obediently shut his mouth, and Marcus continued. "When it infects a host, the host's cellular structure is changed. It mutates the cells, like any other virus, and therefore weakens the host. But the individual cells become stronger. The rate of infection is incredibly fast as well. The time from infection to death is less than two hours."

"Oh my God," Birkin whispered.

"As I said before, the virus is also contagious, more so because the body has no defenses against it. It's primary method of infection is through bodily fluids. Blood, saliva, mucus, even sweat. An open cut on your hand is enough for the virus to enter. It can also go airborne, but infections by that method are blessedly uncommon."

They came to a room marked "Audio/Visual" and went inside. There was a long conference table lined with chairs and a slide projector in the center. Marcus rolled up the projector screen against the opposite wall to reveal a large screen television built into the wall.

"Take a seat, gentlemen," he said, going to a large cabinet against the adjacent wall. The inside was lined with video cassettes, and after searching for a moment, Marcus came to the one he was looking for. He set the case on the table and pushed the tape into the VCR slot under the television. Wesker and Birkin took chairs, as instructed, while Marcus remained standing, folding his arms across his chest.

The tape came on and revealed a small observation room. There was a chimpanzee sitting in the center of the room, playing with colored blocks. There was no sound to the video, but a small counter showed in the corner of the screen, currently set at zero. From outside the frame, a man entered wearing a hazard suit. His face was blurred behind the faceplate. The man touched the chimpanzee tenderly, distracting it, and then poked it in the arm with something. The chimp flinched, but the man continued to play with it and the chimp seemed to ignore the stealthy attack. After a few moments, the man got up and left. The counter started.

"He stabbed the monkey with a small pin dipped in the virus," Marcus said. "The monkey has been infected now. Watch the timer."

The scene skipped ahead, and the timer now showed that thirty-two minutes had passed. The chimpanzee was still in the room, but it was no longer playing with the blocks. It was stumbling around the small room, apparently disoriented. Unable to walk on its legs, it began crawling around the room aimlessly.

"The host loses control of its motor skills first," Marcus explained as Wesker and Birkin had their attention riveted on the screen. "Reduced muscle control, blurred vision, and slurred speech come soon after."

The scene skipped ahead once more, the counter showing that an hour and fourteen minutes had passed. The chimp was now laying on its stomach in the middle of the room, barely moving. It twitched a few times, wiggling its hand, but otherwise remained still.

"The host slips into a catatonic state after an hour or so. Sometimes more, sometimes less, we're not sure why there's a disparity in the time frame."

When the video skipped ahead once more, it showed the same scene of the chimp laying motionless in the center of the room. The counter showed that an hour and forty-one minutes had passed.

"The monkey is dead now," Marcus said. "All vital functions have stopped. Less than two hours after it was first infected."

"My God," Birkin said again, squirming in the chair. "No disease kills this fast. I've never heard of anything–"

"Quiet," Marcus said. "It's not over yet."

The scene skipped ahead one last time, still showing the chimpanzee in the middle of the floor. The counter showed two hours and three minutes had elapsed since exposure. The chimp had not been moved.

"What's going on?" Wesker asked. "The monkey's dead, why are we still watching ..." But his voice trailed off as he watched the screen, and behind the sunglasses, his eyes got wide. Birkin raised a hand to his mouth and repressed a terrified moan.

The chimpanzee was moving again. It gradually got to his hands and feet and looked up, directly at the camera. Its eyes were open, bloodshot, and ablaze with a look of fury. The chimp opened its mouth and screamed. Even with no sound on the video, Wesker could almost hear it, and it made him shiver uncontrollably.

"And after two hours," Marcus said casually, "the monkey comes back to life."


	8. Chapter 8

8

"It's been six months," Spencer said, steepling his fingers. "You promised me a full report after six months."

Marcus was desperate to return to his lab, but Spencer's order had been unambiguous in its directness. He was making huge amounts of progress with his leeches, and the thought of being away from them for even an hour burned in his chest, but when Spencer commanded him to visit the office, he knew he had no choice. The leeches, for now, would just have to wait.

"I did promise," Marcus admitted, since denying it would be pointless. "But I don't have one for you. I've been accomplishing so much, I haven't had time to write everything down. The experiment is still progressing. I wanted to wait to write my full report until I had established a clear stopping point, the complete results."

Spencer set his elbows on the spotless desk and leaned forward. "You haven't really told me, or anyone else for that matter, much about your experiment."

"That's true."

"If I remember correctly, James, secrecy is not one of your three rules to live by. It is not in the best interests of the company."

"I take pride in my work. I wanted to test my own theories, perform my own work without outside influences."

"Tell me about it," Spencer said, leaning back in his chair. He folded his hands in his lap and turned the chair sideways so he could look out the back window of his office as Marcus talked. "Tell me about your experiment."

"In detail?"

"An outline, if that is what you prefer."

Inwardly, Marcus breathed a sigh of relief. He did not want to go into details with Spencer, not now, not when he was so close to completing the work. He felt an overwhelming desire to fake illness, lie about a prior appointment, do anything to get out of Spencer's lavish office and return to the safety of his own lab. Spending time there was like feeding an addiction, and being forced to spend time away was like going through withdrawal.

"Well, the experiment started out as a test to see how the Progenitor would develop if bred into a species for several generations. I had reason to believe that the offspring of an infected host could bond with the Progenitor on a genetic level."

"The Ashford children," Spencer said quietly.

After an uncomfortable pause, Marcus said, "Yes, Alexander's son and daughter. But I wanted to see the effects over numerous generations in a controlled environment. I wanted to see if the Progenitor would change along with the host."

"What host did you select?"

"Leeches," Marcus said. "Simple enough to make the experiment easy to perform, but complex enough to give the Progenitor a great deal of genetic material to deal with."

"Okay. Go on."

Marcus licked his lips, unsure how to continue. He did not want to make Spencer suspicious by leaving out pertinent information, but at the same time he did not want to give him so much information he became suspicious for other reasons. And Spencer, despite the fact that he no longer did hands-on scientific work, knew as much about the Progenitor as anyone and would surely know if Marcus was lying or stretching the truth.

"Well, I infected several dozen leeches with the Progenitor and allowed them to reproduce. As of today, I've had about fifty generations. As I expected, the leeches have mutated beyond their original form. They're much larger, more agile, and more aggressive. I've dissected over a hundred specimens from different generations, and over time, the Progenitor has bonded more and more intricately with the host's genetic material. In the most recent generations, the DNA is neither primarily leech nor Progenitor, but a close combination of the two. In other words, the Progenitor's presence is all but indistinguishable from the new leech DNA."

At that, Spencer turned and looked carefully at Marcus. Was the old man simply surprised, or was he trying to detect a lie? Marcus kept his expression carefully neutral.

"Have you created a new species?" he asked.

Marcus, keeping his face blank, shrugged slightly. "That's what I'm working on right now. I haven't done close analysis yet, but I can say that the leeches are not just leeches naturally infected with the Progenitor. They are something else."

Spencer leaned back in the chair once more, touching a finger to his lips in thought. "And what of the Progenitor's unfortunate side effects through secondary infection?"

"I have not tested it yet," Marcus said. "But I'm planning to within the next month." He calmed down rapidly as he saw Spencer's reaction. His superior seemed fascinated with the edited version of the experiment, and it gave Marcus some much-needed leverage in the conversation. His confidence grew when he saw how thoroughly Spencer had swallowed it. "As you can see, there is a lot of information for me to work with, and that's why I'm late in writing the report. I'm just swamped with new data and overrun with new ideas and theories concerning how to deal with it."

Spencer waved a hand, silencing him. "Don't worry about the report. Continue your research. Take as long as you need. Just keep me informed of all new developments."

"Of course."

"Perhaps you should take some of your new men down to the lab to assist you in getting your conclusions finalized," Spencer suggested.

Marcus stiffened. "I've gotten this far on my own, so I'd like to ride the rest of it out myself, if that's all right with you. Besides, if I brought some assistants down now, I'd have to waste time giving them all the background information before I could proceed. They would just get in the way."

"It's all right, James. This project is your baby, so I'll let you carry it to term on your own. But I want an update for every new development."

"Yes, sir."

"Okay, you may go."

Marcus rose quickly, more than ready to get back to the lab and back to work. He rushed out of the lab, leaving Spencer alone, staring dreamily out the window.

He had not told Spencer the exact truth, only an edited version of it, and he would have to deal with the consequences when the time came. He wanted to keep certain details secret as long as possible, and if that meant going over Spencer's head to accomplish his goals, then so be it. If Spencer new the full potential of Marcus' work, he would never let him finish it on his own. He would demand an entire research staff working on it, expanding the project to his own lab as well. In bits and pieces, he would steal the experiment away from Marcus. And Marcus was not about to let that happen.


	9. Chapter 9

9

It was hard for Wesker and Birkin to accept the truth, even after they had watched the videos and read the reports and seen the evidence with their own eyes. They were scientists, educated and trained to believe in and base their work on certain unchangeable tenets, permanent biological rules that no medical miracle could overcome. To see the work of the Progenitor, to see how it turned all their assumptions upside down, turned their blood to ice.

The Progenitor killed its host. And then it resurrected the host as something else. A creature that moved as if alive, but with no heartbeat and no respiration. Medically, biologically, the host was dead, killed by the Progenitor, but it moved and sensed and appeared to be alive once more. To think of what the host had become was a terrifying thought indeed. It was dead but not dead, alive but not alive. It was both.

Neither Wesker nor Birkin said the words that popped into their heads, and neither did anyone else in the entire laboratory. They knew what the hosts had become, but they could not say it because they were scientists, and scientists could not believe in such things. Certain words were strictly forbidden.

Words like "undead." Words like "zombie."

But there really was no other word for it, none that made any sense. Some of the scientists used terms like "post-resurrection phase" and "second-stage host" but they were just complicated ways of saying what the hosts really were. They were alive, and then dead, and now neither. And the word "zombie" was really the only one that fit.

But even that wasn't right. Usually, the word was reserved for undead human beings, not monkeys or dogs or any of the other animals the Progenitor had been tested on. And although Wesker had not specifically asked, Marcus answered him.

"Yes, humans have been infected. Early in Progenitor's history, there were a few incidents, before we knew what we were dealing with. And since, there have been a few lab accidents where researchers were exposed. We haven't had an accident like that in at least seven years, though. Our safety measures are much more thorough."

"How many people, total, have been infected?" Wesker asked. "That you know of."

Marcus rubbed his chin. "Perhaps two dozen," he said vaguely. By the sound of his voice, Wesker estimated the true number was double that, maybe higher. Fifty people infected, turned into monsters. Fifty lives destroyed, because of a miracle cure disguised as a nightmare plague.

"What was done with them?" he asked.

"The only thing that could be done," Marcus answered simply, as if the question had been self-explanatory. And perhaps it had been. "They were isolated and caged, to be experimented with and studied. If that was not possible, they were destroyed. They were not human anymore, and we could not allow the infection to spread. We had no choice in the matter. We have no choice."

"I wasn't judging you," Wesker said.

If Wesker wasn't, Birkin surely was. Right off the bat, he situated himself in one of smaller labs, engrossing himself in the medical potential of the Progenitor. He surrounded himself in a handful of like-minded scientists and began working on how to transform the regenerative-yet-destructive power of the Progenitor into something beneficial to humanity. In that sense, his work had not changed much from before, but instead of working with some nameless enzyme, he was working with the Progenitor itself.

Wesker's work went along a very different track. By some unknown genetic mechanism, the Progenitor could mutate certain kinds of animals when they were infected with it. Some animals became substantially larger during their post-resurrection phase, and some changed more drastically. Some breeds of dogs, including the Doberman Pinscher, had their fur and skin seemingly melt away, revealing the bloody muscle and sinew beneath. Birds sometimes lost their feathers, along with their ability to fly. Chimpanzees and howler monkeys became unbelievably vicious, their eyes turned red as blood, and like the dogs, they lost hair and skin in hideous patches. Other animals went deaf or blind when the virus destroyed their senses. Insects in particular grew to several times their original size and gained frightful new abilities, such as spiders which could spray acid-like venom at their prey. Wesker dedicated himself to cataloguing and studying the effects. It was fascinating work, but Wesker suffered from nightmares for several weeks after he started.

The Progenitor killed its host because during replication, it interrupted necessary cellular functions and interactions. Hemoglobin in the blood could not longer carry oxygen, the intestines could no longer effectively digest food, the nerves had difficulty transferring information to the brain, synapses in the brain stopped firing. The host died when its body effectively shut down due to hundreds of biological malfunctions.

But the Progenitor virus was regenerative. It kept the cells alive, strengthening them, even as it killed the host. And when the cells lived, the host lived. But with the Progenitor effectively sabotaging such necessary functions as respiration and brainwave activity, the host could not live as it had lived before. So it remained animated, but not strictly alive. The Progenitor kept the host moving like a remote control moving a toy robot.

And when the body stopped maintaining itself, it began to fall apart. Hemorrhages were common, especially from the mouth, ears, and other orifices. The eyes turned glaucomic white or filled with blood, blinding the host. Sometimes, the spinal cord stopped working and the host found itself paralyzed.

And at the other end of the spectrum, however, the host seemingly gained advantages from its loss of life. With no need to eat or breath, it could survive underwater with no sustenance for an unknown amount of time. In fact, it could not be killed by almost any non-physical means. Drowning, asphyxiation, starvation, freezing, poisoning, and any number of other ways to kill something no longer applied to the Progenitor's victims. The only way to kill them was through traumatic physical means. Burning, electrocution, dismemberment, and other forms of extreme physical damage would kill them, at least temporarily, but the corpse would have to be disposed of rapidly or else the Progenitor might yet revive it. Fire was the preferred method of disposal.

"What do you do with them?" Wesker asked one day while in the lab, reviewing slides. "With the infected bodies, once you're finished working with them?"

"We have a special water treatment facility a few miles away," Marcus said. "All of our organic waste material is sent there. It is treated with chemicals and other corrosives, destroying any trace of contaminants."

"The facility is owned by Umbrella?"

"Of course. The local residents don't know that, though."

"The government must know about it."

"Yes," Marcus said, "but the local government of Raccoon City and the Umbrella Corporation have been working together for years. How do you think we were able to build all these laboratories?"

"What do you mean? There are other labs nearby?"

"Don't you know? There are three separate labs within the city limits. This lab, the lab run by Dr. Spencer a few miles away, and another lab directly under the city. We also own the water treatment plant and two industrial sites."

"I had no idea," Wesker said. "And the local residents don't even know?"

Marcus scoffed at the thought. "Umbrella owns most of the town. The mayor's office keeps it under wraps because we donate so much money for city projects. The mayor of Raccoon City is practically an employee of Umbrella."

Wesker turned his attention back to the video screen in front of him. "I guess that explains a few things." He made a mental note to keep that information in mind. Having the local city government essentially on the payroll could come in handy.

Unlike Birkin, Wesker did not devote himself to researching the medical possibilities of the Progenitor. He could not force himself to look on the bright side. The Progenitor, despite having some qualities that might aid medical research in the future, was not at its core a medical breakthrough. In order for Birkin to accomplish his goal, he would have to find a way to negate more than half of what the Progenitor did. He only wanted a small portion of the Progenitor, and to get it he had to nullify the rest. Wesker, on the other hand, wanted the Progenitor in its entirety. He saw the virus not as a tool for medical advance, but as a powerful weapon. The Progenitor was like a biological bomb, an epidemic to end all epidemics.

"You should be working with me," Birkin said one evening in the small break room. It was almost midnight and both of them were still working. While Wesker snacked on a candy bar to give him some quick energy, Birkin was downing his tenth or twelfth cup of coffee that day.

"Marcus wants us to work together, but it's hard to do that when we're working on totally different projects. You'd be a huge help," Birkin said, subtly stroking Wesker's ego, which usually worked. "The guys I'm working with now just aren't visionary enough, they can't improvise their methods."

"I'm not interested in what you're working on," Wesker said, munching on the candy bar. "Sorry, but that's the way it is. Besides, I'm getting pretty far with my own stuff, I can't stop now and switch to something else."

"How can you not be interested?" Birkin asked incredulously. "We're working on the cure to cellular diseases, man. That's the biggest thing there is."

"It's also the hardest thing there is," Wesker replied. "The virus kills everything it touches, and you want to turn it into the exact opposite. You're chasing a dream."

Birkin sipped his coffee. "Isn't that a good thing?"

"Okay, let me rephrase it. You're chasing a pipe dream."

"Don't be such a pessimist. The key is right there, Wesker. It's right in front of us, we just have to find a way to get it out."

Wesker leaned back and folded his hands behind his head. He was exhausted from spending all day behind a microscope, but he dared not go to sleep yet. There was so much to do. "Look, Will. The virus is not reducible. It heals the cells but it also kills the host, and those two qualities are inextricably linked. You can't have one without the other. You're trying to make cold fire."

"You're exaggerating."

"No, I'm not. You know how the virus works, you've read all the reports. It invades the cells and makes them damage-resistant, and that's exactly what kills the host. When the cells gain that ability to heal, it also interrupts other cellular functions. The host dies from the very thing you're trying to single out."

"At least I'm trying to do something positive," Birkin shot back. He knew Wesker had a valid point; many of the other scientists there felt the same way. When feeding Wesker's ego didn't work, Birkin resorted to making him feel guilty. "What are you doing all day? Just infecting more and more animals to see what happens."

"That's science," Wesker said. "Throw some chemicals in a test tube and see what they make. We're experimenting."

"There's no point to it."

"We're learning," Wesker said, ignoring the harsh tone in Birkin's voice. "Isn't that what you're all about? Learning for the sake of learning? The more we know about the virus and the way it works, the better off we'll be."

"You should be looking for a way to halt the infection, to stop the virus from spreading, not just finding more species to infect with it."

"We probably will, just not right now. We're still studying the virus. Once we know exactly how it spreads, then we can work on prevention. Marcus said something the other day about setting up a crew to work on developing a possible antivirus."

That got Birkin's attention. "Are you serious?"

"Yes, I'm serious. We're not going to do it tomorrow, but it's the next possible step. That's the project that you should be working on. It has a much higher chance of success."

Birkin sat back and thought it over. For the moment, he had forgotten about trying to sway Wesker to his side. "I guess all they'd have to do is keep the cellular functions from breaking down. Introduce some kind of intermediary substance to keep the cells working properly without affecting the Progenitor."

"And to do that," Wesker said, setting up his victory in the argument, "we have to understand exactly how the cell functions break down. We need to study exactly what the Progenitor does, and to do that, we have to continue to infect lab animals. Therefore, the work I'm doing is just as important as yours, if not more so."

Birkin shook his head. "You could have said that to begin with."

"Didn't think about it until now," Wesker said, standing up. "Now, I'm going outside to smoke a cigarette. Don't make any huge discoveries when I'm gone."


	10. Chapter 10

10

Since the scientists who worked at the laboratories run by Marcus and Spencer rarely left the premises and had no reason to walk the perimeter of the grounds, none of them were aware that both labs, as well as the water treatment plant nearby, were surrounded by chain link fence topped with barbed wire. "No Trespassing" signs were posted every twenty feet. Although hikers were common in the Arklay Mountain area, none of the posted hiking trails went anywhere near the Umbrella facilities. But if the secluded area, fence, and signs were not enough to dissuade casual travelers from coming near the compound, there was always the extensive system of security cameras and legion of armed guards on patrol.

Marcus was interrupted from his work one afternoon by a ringing security phone. When he answered, one of the guards at the treatment plant gave him some very interesting information.

"Sir, we have a trespasser in custody."

Marcus sat up in his chair. "Where?"

"Sector Three, sir."

"Is the area secure?"

"Yes, sir."

Marcus hunched forward, leaning on the desk with one arm. Sector Three was the west half of the treatment plant, deep inside the perimeter. There was no way for someone to accidentally make it that far; the trespasser must have climbed a fence to get in, and that meant he did so on purpose. If he had made it to the treatment plant, he might have seen something.

"What should we do, sir?"

Marcus took a deep breath. The treatment plant was top secret, so much so that even the majority of the scientists at the lab didn't know what was done there. Who knew what the trespasser might have seen, what he might have witnessed? Marcus would have to find out who had let him get so close. The security cameras should have spotted him long before he made it inside the fence.

"Sir?" the guard asked again.

"Bring him here," Marcus said. "I'll take care of him." He hung up the phone before the guard could acknowledge the instructions.

It took Marcus a few minutes to calm his nerves. He got up and began to pace the lab room, his slippers sliding against the floor as he walked. An intruder was a rare event, but usually harmless. Some adventurous hiker daring to go off the trails, or a hunter following a trophy buck. But they had never caught someone inside the fence before. Marcus found himself dreading the thought of someone seeing a truckload of infected lab animals marked for disposal, or something even more incriminating. The treatment plant had its dirty little secrets, some dirtier than most.

But what could he do? He wondered why he had even told the guards to bring the intruder to him. They would have searched and interrogated him quite thoroughly already, so why bring him to the lab? Why?

In the back of his mind, however, Marcus knew why. It was the same reason people craned their necks when they drove by violent car accidents. It was the same reason supposedly conservative women read trashy romance novels. It was the same reason that middle-aged men volunteered to coach high school girls' basketball. It was a twisted desire for the unknown, a hidden obsession with what you cannot have. The forbidden fruit. Marcus found himself sweating and had to wipe his forehead with his sleeve. He knew why he had ordered the guards to bring the intruder there, he just did not want to admit it to himself.

Half an hour later, the guards brought the trespasser. He was dressed in khaki pants with mud-stained knees, and a brown long-sleeved shirt. His hands were cuffed behind him and a black cloth bag was tied over his head. Marcus had the guards place him in a small observation cell, roughly sitting him down on a simple wooden chair in the middle of the room. After the guards had given Marcus the details of the intruder's capture, they left him.

The security guards were of no concern. They were well-trained and fervently loyal to Umbrella, as obedient as military soldiers in a secret, black-ops outfit. Which was the way it should be, since the Umbrella guards were frequently exposed to extremely confidential information and entrusted with protecting the company's most-treasured secrets. They followed their orders and asked no questions.

Marcus stepped inside the observation cell and put his hands in the front pockets of his lab coat, letting the door swing open behind him. The intruder looked up at the sound, although he could not see because of the bag tied over his head.

"What's your name?" Marcus asked conversationally.

"Listen, I don't know what you think is going on here," the man said quickly, "but you have no right to do this to me. Those goons of yours violated my civil rights back there. You have no right to do this. Take this bag off my head and let me call my lawyer."

He went on like that for a minute before Marcus stopped him. "You are trespassing on government property, my boy. You don't have a right to anything at this point."

"You can't do this to me, I didn't do anything wrong. I was just walking in the woods, and –"

"You climbed over a fence with signs posted."

"That fence looked decades old! How could I know that it was still there for a reason? I didn't think anyone owned this land!"

"Well, someone does. You were taking pictures too, weren't you?"

"I had a camera, so what? I was just taking pictures of the woods and stuff! Those guards of your exposed the film anyway."

"They said you ran from them."

"If guys with machine guns started chasing you, wouldn't you run too?"

Marcus crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe. This intruder, whatever his name was, was not telling the whole truth, that much was obvious. He carried no identification, which is why they didn't know his name, and his story did not seem very likely. Marcus would have to check the condition of the fence, perhaps it did look too old to still be in use. But one of the guards had said that the man took at least one picture of the treatment plant itself. He was not some random hiker, he was there for a reason.

"Listen, my boy," Marcus said, trying to sound fatherly, "You're in a lot of trouble here. This is private government property and you willingly trespassed onto it. You're lucky the guards didn't shoot you on sight."

"No, you listen," the trespasser interrupted, "I have rights, and you can't just arrest me for no reason. You can't keep this stupid bag over my head, either. Now, you let me out of here, or I'll bring a lawsuit against you so big your whole company will go bankrupt."

That, at least, made Marcus chuckle. "I really don't think so. You're not going anywhere, at least not anytime soon."

"I didn't see anything, okay? Those guys wrecked my camera and I didn't see anything, so whatever you're doing here is still a secret. Just let me go, cause you have no right keeping me here," he said, but the resolve in his voice was beginning to fade.

Marcus shook his head. "I'm sorry, but that's not good enough. You broke the law, my boy. You intentionally trespassed onto a secret military installation," he said, stretching the lie a little bit further, "and that is a crime against the government. You just committed treason."

"This is ridiculous!" the man cried desperately. "I didn't do anything!"

"You committed treason," Marcus repeated. "Did you know that that crime carries the death penalty?"

"The death penalty ... ?" the man said, his voice trailing to a whisper.

"But I will do one thing for you," Marcus said. "Since you asked so nicely, I'll take the bag off your head." He untied the rope and pulled the bag off, revealing the man's face. He stared up at Marcus with wide, scared eyes, but said nothing. Marcus tossed the bag into the corner. "But you might wish I'd left it on," he said as he turned to go out the door.

Sitting on the floor in the hallway was a metal box a six inches tall, six inches wide, and a foot long. With his foot, Marcus slid it into the observation room. He reached down and removed the front panel before leaving, the door clicking shut loudly when it closed. The man stared in terror at the metal box.

When four of Marcus' leeches crawled out of the box, he began screaming. He kept screaming until the leeches killed him, and then some time after they had killed him, he began to moan.


	11. Chapter 11

11

Each time, it became easier. The trespasser had been the first one, but not the only one. After him came the homeless man, a vagrant the guards had captured as he walked down the dirt road leading toward town. And then the female jogger, a young college student they had abducted a few miles from the lab. After that, Marcus had arranged to fire one of the janitors at the mansion, and then had him sent to the lab on his final day. Marcus had winced in disgust when he fed the trespasser to the leeches, his stomach turning at the thought of the horrible crime he was committing. But he eagerly awaited sending the janitor to the leeches, and watched them kill the poor man with fascinated intensity, spending almost that entire evening writing notes on what had happened, combining what he learned with what he already knew about the leeches behavior.

While they could kill and completely devour a small animal like a rabbit or a cat, the leeches could not eat an entire human being. After chewing through the victim's abdomen and chest cavity, they were sated. The victim became reanimated shortly after, turning into a mindless walking corpse. Marcus burned them and had the charred bodies sent to the treatment plant.

The leeches were more important to him than the lives of innocent people, they were more important than his career, they were more important than anything he had ever known. Studying them, learning about them, experimenting with them, feeding them, became an unstoppable obsession. He abandoned all his other responsibilities in favor of the overwhelming desire to study his precious leeches.

He would spend hours just watching them. He would slide his chair next to the terrarium in the main lab and just watch them, like a child watching a tank full of swimming, glittering goldfish. And incredibly, the leeches seemed to watch him as well. Sometimes, they would line up in the terrarium and sit still, looking at him with their black, glass-like eyes. Marcus felt sure that they were studying him like he was studying them. He was their creator, their benefactor, their master. He was their father.

He had forgotten completely about giving Spencer updates, and began to just ignore the messages on his answering machine. He never answered the main phone, just the security phone. He stopped visiting the labs, stopped even faking an interest in the work the other scientists were doing, stopped even making an effort to perform the other responsibilities of his job. He became a hermit, a self-contained shut away. He spent 20 hours a day working with the leeches, with four hours of sleep in between. By now, he had four tanks with four different breeds growing simultaneously, and he tried desperately to give his undivided attention to each one.

And then, the breakthrough he had been working for. After dissecting yet another specimen, he made some slides and put them under the microscope. His hands trembled uncontrollably as he adjusted the magnification, as the squirming cells came into focus. His eyes widened in amazement at what the leeches had become, what their DNA had transformed into.

The Progenitor was no longer evident in the DNA. It was fused completely with the leech DNA, bonded to it like nothing Marcus had ever seen before. With a start, he realized that the DNA was now totally intertwined. His leeches were no longer infected with the Progenitor, they were combined with the Progenitor. They were one organism. The leeches and the Progenitor were now the same thing.

Marcus fell back into his chair and let his arms hang limp at his sides. He felt out of breath. After constant long-term breeding of the infected leeches, he had finally succeeded in his original experiment. He had accomplished his goal. The Progenitor was now fused with the leech DNA, creating something totally new, totally unique.

He stumbled out of his chair, almost falling on his face. After so many days with barely any sleep and poor diet, he was weak and perpetually exhausted. But he couldn't stop now, not when he was this close.

He slid a metal containment tray into a slot under the terrarium and lured two of his leeches into it. After fastening the front panel, he slid the tray back out and carried it down the dimly lit hallway. Trying to hurry, he tripped on a stray cable and nearly dropped the tray. He got up gingerly, rubbing his knee, which had struck the floor. Being more careful the rest of the way, he reached one of the observation rooms and set the tray down.

In the supply room where the animals were stored, there were only two rabbits and a few birds left. He had ordered more lab animals a few days before, but they weren't in yet. He was about to take one of the rabbits when the urge hit him. He had fully intended the janitor to be the last human host, but this was important. The leeches were now fully integrated with the Progenitor virus, and he had to see what effect that would have on the virus' infectious properties. This was a most important test he had to do, and he didn't want to do it with a rabbit or a bird, he wanted to perform the experiment with a human host.

He grabbed the security phone and dialed. "Send someone to my lab," he said as soon as it picked up. "I need help with something."

Waiting for the guard was torture. After a painfully long wait of ten minutes, a guard buzzed in the rear entrance to the lab. Marcus ushered him in and led him down the hallway to the observation room. In the room, the ventilation duct cover was off and lying on the floor.

"Something in the vent is making noise," Marcus said, pointing up at the vent. "I think one of the filter panels is loose and rattling around in there."

"Why don't you call maintenance, sir?"

"I can't have some repairman in here," Marcus scoffed. "They don't have security clearance. And I need this fixed right now."

"What do you want me to do?"

Marcus handed him a screwdriver. "Just get on that chair, reach into the vent, and tighten the screws on the filter cover."

The guard paused, looking uncertainly at the observation room. "Sir, are you sure that's safe?"

"Of course it's safe," Marcus said. "I would do it myself, but I hurt my knee the other day and don't want to be standing on a chair where I might fall down. Besides, I'm not tall enough to reach the screws."

"I mean, is it safe to be in that room? The ventilation system ..." the guard trailed off, but Marcus knew what he was thinking. The ventilation system connected to the observation and examination rooms was designed to keep fresh air circulated in the rooms to prevent build-up of possibly toxic pathogen levels and to filter the out-going air to remove contaminants. Even though the Progenitor was not primarily an airborne disease, it was purely a precautionary measure.

"The ventilation system is fine, young man. The filters are coated with organic corrosives that kill the virus when it comes in contact."

"Okay, sir. I had to ask."

"It's alright, now get up there."

The guard entered the observation room and got onto the chair. Marcus entered as well and positioned himself as if to hold onto it. When the guard reached into the vent, Marcus stepped back into the hallway and pushed the containment tray into the room. He unlatched the front panel and left, letting the door slam shut.

Startled by the sudden noise, the guard lost his balance and fell off the chair. He hit the floor flat on his back and gasped loudly as the wind was knocked out of him. Before he even tried to stand up, he scrambled to pull his pistol out of the holster, gasping for breath.

The leeches got to him first. One of them leaped up and bit onto his face, and he screamed madly, swinging his gun up. He fired twice, hitting the wall and the ceiling, as the other leech aimed straight for his stomach. He grabbed the leech on his face with his free hand and hurled it away, but the second leech slid between the buttons of his uniform and snuck inside his shirt. He shrieked frantically, trying to yank off the shirt and get the leech, while waving his gun at the other one, which was already crawling toward him again. It leaped up for his face once more, but he put his hand in the way and the leech bit firmly onto his wrist. He shook his hand, trying to get the leech off, while reaching into his shirt for the second one. The gun went off again and the bullet struck the reinforced glass of the observation window, creating a series of cracks in a spiderweb pattern.

The guard swung his hand and hit it against the wall, knocking the leech off. He finally succeeded in yanking his shirt free, the buttons popping off one by one, and grabbed the leech trying to burrow its way through his undershirt. He tossed it away into the corner and fired the gun, missing it twice, before hitting it. The leech exploded with the force of the bullet.

The first leech leaped back on his face and went right for his eye. He screamed in agony as he pulled it loose, his eye still in its small teeth. Blood gushed down his face. Half-blinded, he emptied the rest of the clip at the leech without hitting it. Once more, it leaped for his face. He struggled to pull it free, but the blood and slime made it too slippery to hold onto. He howled in pain as the leech dug into his eye socket. Blood and gore was smeared across his face and down the front of his ripped uniform, and all over the floor and walls where he struggled to free himself from the leech's fierce grip.

Finally, his body spasmed and jerked wildly as the leech dug its way inside, and his arms and legs flailed uncontrollably, splattering more blood around the small room. The seizure lasted a few moments, and then his leg kicked one final time and was still. His hands, balled into fists, slowly uncurled.

Marcus touched the cracked window and let out a deep breath. He closed his eyes and let himself sink to the floor, exhausted. It was done. Now, he need only wait to see what would become of it.


	12. Chapter 12

12

"Okay, I understand. Thank you," Spencer said, and set the phone receiver back in the cradle. He set his elbows on the spotless desk top and steepled his fingers, a practiced, repetitive gesture he had perfected over the years. But there was an almost unnoticeable tremor in his hands as he did so.

Wesker, sitting in the chair across from him, noticed it. His mirrored sunglasses reflected the setting sun behind Spencer's large office window, making the glasses look a fiery orange. He sat in the comfortable leather chair with his hands in his lap and his legs crossed, his face completely passive. He suspected what Spencer was going to ask him, but did not want to give away his foreknowledge. This was actually the first time he had ever met Dr. Ozwell Spencer, and he wanted the man's first impression of him to be as calculating as Wesker's first impression of Spencer was.

"When was the last time you saw Dr. Marcus?" Spencer asked, his voice level.

Wesker thought about it for a few moments. "I haven't seen him since about April. So that would be about five months."

"Do you know where he's been?"

"In his private lab underneath the astronomy tower, I would assume." Everyone knew about the "secret" lab, so he made no effort to hide his knowledge of it.

Spencer nodded, pursing his lips. "He hasn't left the lab in almost that entire time. Does that strike you as odd?"

"He hinted that he was working on something very important," Wesker said. "I assumed that he was."

"You assume a lot," Spencer said, his voice sharp as a knife. He lowered his hands and set them flat on the desk, and his dark blue eyes flashed dangerously. "Now drop the act. You know why I called you here, so stop pretending to be naive. It doesn't suit you."

Wesker let out a breath, his heart racing in his sudden panic. "Okay," he said carefully. "What do you want me to tell you?"

"Tell me your thoughts." Spencer left it at that and sat back in his chair. His eyes were like laser beams, and they froze Wesker's heart. He had greatly underestimated this man, if that was possible. Spencer was much more than what he seemed, and Wesker had already marked him as the coldest man he had ever met. Wesker found himself scared out of his wits. He didn't think there were words to accurately describe what this old man was like. Words like "cold," "cunning," and "ruthless" did not do him justice.

"Marcus has been getting worse," he heard himself say. "Even before he disappeared completely, I barely saw him. He visited the labs once a week, if that. He spent all his time in his private lab, but he never told us what he was working on."

"Did his behavior worry you?"

"Not really," Wesker admitted. "We're all obsessed with our work. I just thought he was more obsessed that the rest of us."

"He is obsessed, that much is true," Spencer said, his voice calmer. Wesker's heart rate reduced and his breathing slowed. He felt as if he had just awakened from hypnosis. "But his obsession is beginning to have negative consequences."

"Like what?" Wesker asked.

Spencer sighed and turned his chair to look out the window. The Arklay Mountains were a popular scenic area, even though Wesker had never taken time to personally experience the beauty of nature, but the view from Spencer's window was quite lovely. Wesker could imagine him, in his more-relaxed moments, gazing out the window with a peaceful expression on his face. Not now, however. His expression was anything but peaceful. There was anger, fear, bitterness, and frustration barely concealed beneath the surface.

"How long have you been here, Wesker?" Spencer asked.

"A little over a year."

"You were promoted very early, you know. Many of the people in your training class are still working at the training center, while you're already working in the main lab with your own research team."

"I wasn't the only one."

"Yes, your colleague William Birkin. I know about him as well. But I didn't call Birkin here today, for several reasons. I wanted to talk to you about this."

"Why?"

Spencer turned the chair back to its original position, setting his elbows on the desk and steepling his fingers once again. "I know everything that goes on in this company, Wesker. Even the things that people try to keep hidden. I see everything and I hear everything. Nothing escapes me."

"I believe you," Wesker said, and he did.

"And I can read people," Spencer said, ignoring Wesker's comment. "I control this company because I can control people. I understand what makes them tick." As he spoke, her pointed a long, sharp finger at Wesker. "And I know what makes you tick. You like to think you have people fooled, but you can't fool me. Your every move, your every gesture, announces your intentions and desires to me like a megaphone."

"I don't understand."

"Your friend Birkin wants to cure all diseases, and he thinks the Progenitor can help him do it. He wants to save mankind, he wants to create a super vaccine against all disease. You don't share his beliefs."

"No, I don't."

"That is what I'm talking about, Wesker. You aren't working here to help mankind, you're working here to help yourself. Your ambition comes off of you like a wave. I can almost smell it."

Wesker didn't know what to say to such a damning accusation, so he said nothing. Whatever ounce of confidence he retained after Spencer's earlier burst of anger shriveled up like a raisin and left him defenseless. He had a vision of Spencer as a heartless judge about to sentence him to a life at hard labor.

Spencer smiled suddenly, and it scared Wesker down to his bones. "How does it feel to be put in your place?"

"I don't like it," Wesker said, his voice barely above a whisper.

"Just remember where your place is," Spencer said conversationally, "and I won't have to put you in it again. You're intelligent and ambitious, but just remember that those skills will get you absolutely nowhere if I say so. Do what I tell you and you'll go far in this company. Defy me, and you will go nowhere but down."

"Yes," Wesker said, and then, "Yes, sir."

"This is why I wanted to talk to you instead of Birkin. Do you see now? Birkin lets his noble ideas of right and wrong get in the way. He'll go far in this company as well, but only because we can use his mind. He doesn't have the drive to succeed the way you are destined to succeed, Wesker."

"Yes, sir."

Spencer smiled again, this time more naturally, and Wesker felt himself calm down. He had passed a test, but he didn't know how and wasn't about to test his luck by asking. He could not wait to get out of this office, if he lived that long.

"Marcus is no longer useful to this company," Spencer said. "He has never been very useful, to be honest, but at least he always followed my orders. He followed the rules, up until now. He's a problem, and I want you to take care of it."

"What has he done?"

"Use your imagination. I'm not against breaking the law, as long as it is done via the proper channels and leads to results. But Marcus has gone too far. He has taken his work away from the company and now works only for himself. He went over my head."

Wesker's brain processed what he was being told. Possible scenarios flashed through his mind like images from a slide projector. Marcus was breaking the law? How had he gone too far? Just what in the world was he doing down in that lab?

"How do you want me to handle the situation?" he asked cautiously.

"Once you see what has occurred, you'll know the proper course of action. But I'm going to assign some men to help you."

"You mean security?"

"Not exactly. They'll be here tomorrow. Be ready at dawn, and go down into Marcus' private lab. I'll get you the entry code for the elevator. Be careful, and expect him to try to get rid of you."

"And then what?"

"Go through everything, all of his work. Search his computer, go through all his notes and files, whatever you can find. I want detailed information about what he's been working on. He gave me a rough outline, but that was months ago."

"Okay," Wesker said, and leaned forward in the chair, preparing to stand up. He paused before doing so, waiting for permission.

Spencer waved a hand dismissively. "All right, get out of here. Remember, be ready at dawn. I'll have the men meet you outside the tower."

Wesker got up and walked to the door, trying to hide his intense relief at being allowed to leave the office. He would be happy if he never had to enter that room again.

"And Wesker?"

He turned around. "Yes, sir?"

"Do this right, and I'll let you take over Marcus' research. You can continue from wherever he left off."

"Thank you."

Wesker closed the office door slowly on his way out, and Spencer was alone again. He leaned back in his chair and took off his glasses to rub his sore eyes. It had been a long, difficult day, but at least it was over.

Wesker would take care of it, Spencer was certain. He might have some doubts or misgivings now, but they would disappear as soon as he stepped into that lab. He was scared and apprehensive, but that too would fade when he was faced with the severity of the situation. Spencer had faith in the young man, faith that his ambition would drive him in the right direction. He just had to take the first step, that was all. After this was over, he would emerge stronger and more sure of himself, and in the end it would benefit him. Also, it would forever indebt him to Spencer. Once, for giving him the opportunity, and twice, for showing him what would happen if he ever crossed the wrong path, like Marcus did.

Spencer felt no sympathy for Marcus. He might have let him get away with one murder, but not five. And certainly not when two of the victims were Umbrella employees. One unwilling human host might have been worth the trouble, if there had been positive results to show, some greater end to justify the means. But Marcus had taken the leap into madness, and showed no signs of coming out any time soon. Hence, Wesker would be sent in to clean up the mess. And there would be a mess.

Spencer just hoped that Marcus had actually accomplished something. He didn't want all this effort to go to waste.


	13. Chapter 13

13

Wesker awoke before his alarm went off. His sleep had been restless and uneasy, and he felt worse than if he'd simply stayed awake all night. He cast his sheets aside and walked in the darkness to the light switch on the wall. He closed his eyes against the sudden brightness and waited until he could see clearly. Outside his dorm window, it was still pitch black. The clock read ten minutes before four.

He showered under a spray of blistering hot water, clenching his teeth and gripping the edge of the tile shower stall against the pain. He came out with his skin a bright, throbbing red. He held the sink and leaned forward, letting the water from his hair drip down his face, and looked up into the mirror.

No one ever saw him without his sunglasses, but if they did, they would see a face much more vulnerable and childlike than the one he showed the world. His eyes were a soft, clear blue, and very young-looking. Wesker supposed that was why he wore the reflective sunglasses in the first place. A man like Spencer, with dark, intense, brooding eyes, could use them to his advantage when staring people down. His eyes reflected his personality. Wesker's innocent eyes, on the other hand, portrayed the exact opposite of his personality, so he opted to hide them.

He toweled off and dressed rapidly, preferring to hurry up and get the day over with quickly, rather than delay what was sure to be unpleasant business. He put on his sunglasses last, and went out the door.

He encountered no one on his way through the mansion, but he didn't expect to this early in the morning. The place was silent as a mausoleum. He hurried down the steps in the main foyer and headed through the rear doors to the main conference room.

And found William Birkin waiting for him. Birkin was leaning against the outer doors with his arms crossed, his greasy black hair hanging over his face. He almost looked asleep, but when Wesker entered, Birkin looked up expectantly and came forward.

"What are you doing here?" Wesker asked.

"Waiting for you."

"Why? How did you know I'd come here this morning?"

"I know something is going on," Birkin said, brushing his hair from his face, revealing bloodshot eyes and lines of weariness creeping on his otherwise youthful face. "And I want to know what it is."

"You didn't sleep last night, did you?"

"Nope, too busy working. I came here at two-thirty to wait for you."

"Well, you wasted your time. What I'm doing here doesn't concern you," Wesker said brusquely, attempting to simply push past him.

But Birkin, despite his obvious fatigue, reacted quickly and once again got in Wesker's way, holding out his hand to keep him back. "Tell me what you're going to do," he ordered. "You can't keep it from me, so you might as well just tell me now."

"It's none of your business."

"It is my business, and you know it. I know that Spencer called you to his office yesterday, and I want to know what he told you."

Wesker shook his head. "I can't tell you, Will."

"You're lying!" Birkin shouted, clenching his fists. "I know you're lying! You can't leave me out of this! You can't just toss me aside like I'm one of your assistants!"

Wesker lowered his shoulders and sighed. Birkin, taking this as a sign Wesker was going to give in, relaxed a little bit and let his hands fall to his sides. As he did so, Wesker threw himself forward and slammed his outstretched hands directly into Birkin's chest.

Birkin was knocked off his feet and flew to the floor, gasping for breath as the wind was knocked out of him. He tried to get his feet under him, but Wesker ran and stood over him, grabbing his collar and lifting him up. He punched Birkin once in the mouth and hauled him upward before slamming him back down on one of the desks lined up in the room. Birkin tried weakly to fight Wesker off, but Wesker smacked him once more with the back of his hand and pushed him into the desk, one hand on his neck.

"Get out of here," Wesker said evenly. "Don't make me hurt you."

Birkin bared his teeth, now stained with blood. "You can't do this to me! This isn't fair! You can't do this!"

"Talk to Spencer about it," Wesker said simply. He didn't sound angry or threatening, but Birkin could almost detect regret in his voice. "I'm telling you this for your own good. Don't get involved in this."

"What are you going to do?" Birkin insisted.

"It's way beyond you. You don't want to be a part of this. Just get out of here."

With that, he let go of Birkin and backed away. Birkin rolled off the desk and got to his feet, wiping his bloody mouth with the back of his hand. His eyes burned with fury and hatred, but seeing the expression on Wesker's face almost eased his anger. Wesker said nothing more. He turned his back and walked out the back doors without another word. Birkin ran to the doors and went after him. Outside, the sky was just beginning to burn the orange of sunrise. Clouds were in the sky, however, and it was raining lightly when Birkin rushed outside. In the fading darkness, he could see Wesker walking away toward the astronomy tower, his head cast downward. Several yards ahead of him, waiting patiently beside the tower's entrance, stood six men.

Birkin stepped forward to get a better look. The men wore all black, and Birkin realized with a jolt that it was body armor, like the kind members of a S.W.A.T. team wear. The men all had a patch with the Umbrella logo on their arm, and a machine gun slung over their shoulder. They looked in his direction with trained disinterest. When Wesker approached, they all entered the astronomy tower, leaving Birkin alone in the early morning rain.


	14. Chapter 14

14

Marcus was already awake when he heard the bell for the elevator go off down the hall. Dressed in only gray sweat pants and a dirty white undershirt under his white lab coat, he was busy entering information into his computer's graphics program. He wanted to get a three-dimensional visual representation of the new mutation of the Progenitor virus that was breeding with his leeches. The process of compiling the data into a visual image took hours, and Marcus had spent all night entering it.

The security guard turned into a zombie, just like all the others, drastically changing Marcus' original ideas about the results of the combined DNA. It seemed that even though the Progenitor was no longer technically present in the leech's body, it still infected the host with an almost identical disease with identical symptoms. The guard had reanimated according to the exact time scale the Progenitor was set to. Marcus could not account for the apparent likeness of infection, but he knew for a fact that it was not the Progenitor infecting the host. It was something else, something brand new.

In his hastily-scribbled notes, he called the new variant the T-virus. When the elevator bell rang, he was in the middle of entering the information to create a diagram of the virus in order to compare it to the original Progenitor. His head snapped up at the noise and he got up from his chair.

Instinctively, he knew what was happening. It dawned on him as if by inspiration. They were coming for him, coming for his work. Even though he was the only one who had the access code for the elevator, he knew that someone in a position of authority could get the codes directly from the computer system. Someone like Spencer. He had ignored Spencer's calls and deadlines for long enough and now they were coming for him.

He felt like a deer caught in an oncoming car's headlights. They were coming to get him, coming to take away everything he had worked so hard to accomplish. They would steal it from him and throw him away now that he had done all the work. They didn't care about him, Spencer didn't care about him, they only cared about results and progress. They only cared about the work he had poured his life and soul for more than a year. They were just going to waltz in and steal it right from his hands!

They were going to steal his precious leeches!

Marcus could not let them. He might have been willing to part with all the physical data surrounding the experiment, but he knew that they would not stop there. They would not stop until everything was taken from him. They would strip him of his privileges, of his entitlements, of everything he had worked so hard to obtain. After what had happened, Spencer was sure not to stop until there was nothing left to take.

Marcus ran to a table on the other side of the lab, knocking to the floor most of the things scattered on top. Before sending the body of the dead security guard to the treatment plant the night before, he had taken the man's gun. He didn't know why at the time, but now he was glad that he had done so. They were not going to take his life away without a fight. He grabbed the pistol off the floor along with the spare clip and headed out into the hallway.

"Doctor Marcus!" someone shouted.

With a start, Marcus recognized Wesker's voice. Wesker! They had sent him down here to steal everything? Or had he requested the chance to actively promote himself?

Marcus braced himself against the doorframe and pressed the barrel of the gun against his cheek. He hadn't fired a gun since his short stint of service in World War II; could he even hit what he was shooting at? He fumbled with the pistol and disengaged the safety. He didn't know how many bullets remained in the clip or how to insert a new one once it ran out.

"Doctor Marcus! We want to talk to you!"

Wesker was ambitious and had the potential to be ruthless, but Marcus had trouble believing that he had volunteered for this mission. It seemed infinitely more likely that Spencer had put him up to it, or most likely forced him to do it. Spencer would have no qualms with taking advantage of a new employee and sacrificing him for what he deemed to be the greater good. Wesker, no doubt, had been pushed into this. And he was a smart one, so he probably knew he was in over his head.

Marcus couldn't dwell on it, though. Wesker might not want to be here, but here he was and there was only one possible explanation. He was here to steal Marcus' work, to take away the only thing that mattered. And Marcus couldn't let him get away with it. It didn't matter that Wesker was another innocent victim of Spencer's manipulations, he was here to rob Marcus of his life.

Marcus leaned into the hallway and raised the pistol. He pulled the trigger and the gun fired twice, jerking his arm up into the air. The soldiers down the hall ducked for cover and Wesker leaped to the floor. The bullets went wide, and one of them shattered the fluorescent light above their heads. Bits of glass rained down as the soldiers rapidly raised their guns and opened fire.

Marcus turned back behind the doorway and covered his ears as the roar of the machine guns filled the narrow corridor. The far wall exploded in a flurry of bullet holes, and sparks shot across him like microscopic meteors. The second it died down, Marcus stuck his arm back in to the hall and fired once more, his arm shaking. At such an awkward angle, the recoil of the gun hurt his wrist. Another volley of bullets followed, and Marcus could feel their impacts in the wall.

"Marcus!" Wesker screamed over the gunfire. "Throw the gun away!"

"You won't take it from me!" Marcus shouted back, his voice trembling. He discovered his face was wet with tears. "You'll have to kill me!"

"Don't make me do this!"

Marcus stuck his arm out again and fired twice before the gun clicked empty. He tossed it to the floor and ducked back into the lab room. Gunfire erupted once more, blasting what remained of the walls to pieces. Smoke drifted up from the riddled metal wall panels like steam. His ears rang with the deafening noise. Desperately, he turned to the glass terrarium, where the leeches, attracted by the cacophony, were lined up against the glass, watching him expectantly.

Out at the end of the hall, Wesker glanced at the soldiers and said nothing, simply pointing forward defeatedly. They surged forward like a wave down the narrow corridor, weapons raised as they moved to the end of the hall. He stood behind as they advanced, his arms limp at his sides. He hadn't wanted it to come to this, but he knew it didn't matter. Marcus was dead either way.

The soldiers rounded the corner in unison. Marcus barely had time to look up and raise his hands before they opened fire, showering the room with bullets. He felt one hit him squarely in the stomach and lurched forward before another struck him in the chest, and another, and another. He stumbled backward with the force of the shots as the walls around him seemed to explode with dozens of bullet impacts. The entire doorway was lit up with flashes and bursts of gunfire. Distantly, he felt another hit his leg and another tear through his side as he sailed backward and crashed into the terrarium.

The glass shattered immediately, weakened by the numerous bullet holes already perforated through it. His body shattered through the glass and stood upright for just a moment before sliding to the floor and crumpling over, his white shirt now stained with several red circles that gradually got wider.

The leeches, freed of their prison, oozed and jumped out of the terrarium. Wesker was behind the soldiers now, screaming for them to shoot the leeches. Marcus twitched his finger, trying to stop them, even as his life slowly ebbed away. The soldiers concentrated their fire on the leeches, blowing them apart before any of them could get close enough to threaten them. Marcus tried to speak, tried to whisper, but failed. Darkness enclosed his vision.

Wesker walked forward gingerly, stepping around the splattered leech bodies littered across the floor. He kneeled in front of Marcus, who looked up weakly.

"I'm sorry, old man," he said. "It didn't have to be this way."

With his last ounce of strength, Marcus whispered, "Yes ... it did ..." And then, his body finally went completely limp and his head rolled back, eyes staring up at the ceiling. His blood pooled across the floor, almost reaching Wesker's shoes before he stepped back.

The soldier's slung their guns back over their shoulders and stood at attention, and Wesker realized that they were awaiting his orders. He stuck his hands in the pockets of his lab coat and forced himself to remain calm. "Call security, get them over here. We have to clean this up. Who knows what those things were infected with. Two of you stay here and make sure nothing moves. The rest of you sweep this whole lab."

The soldiers saluted him smartly, the gesture almost making him laugh it was so terribly out of place after such needless violence. As instructed, two of the men stood guard at the door, guns trained on the room to confirm that everything inside was dead. Belatedly, Wesker turned back and looked at Marcus' dead body.

"Watch him closely," he said, looking at the dead leeches lying around. "If he moves, shoot him."

"He's dead, sir," one of the soldiers said. To his credit, he said it matter-of-factly, and with a straight face. There wasn't a trace of confusion or amusement in his voice.

"I know that," Wesker said. "But he might not stay that way."


	15. Chapter 15

15

Every inch of the lab was searched. The body of the security guard was found still in the observation room, burned to an almost-unrecognizable crisp. Two malnourished rabbits and a few birds were all that remained of his stock of lab animals. His labs were a mess of scrawled notes, designs, essays, diagrams, and reams of wrinkled computer print-outs. The whole mass of papers filled six large boxes, and Wesker accepted the difficult job of going through them all. The main lab contained the dead bodies of Marcus and seven of his leeches, which were collected and sent to the treatment plant by a squad of men wearing complete hazard suits. The room was disinfected, fumigated, and scrubbed clean, as were all the observation and examination rooms, which weren't in much better shape. The clean-up would take weeks, but in the end, no trace of the Progenitor was found anywhere.

Three other large terrariums were found in adjacent lab rooms, all with leeches of their own, but all with different strains according to Marcus' sometimes illegible notes. The leeches, it was learned, had been infected with the Progenitor months ago and Marcus bred them to cultivate the virus in their DNA to see how they adapted and changed as the virus was passed on to each successive generation.

When Wesker got to the final batch of notes, the most recent ones, he realized what Marcus had learned himself only two days before his death. The Progenitor was now fully integrated with the leeches' DNA and indistinguishable from its original form. The Progenitor virus was now the T-virus.


	16. Chapter 16

16

Birkin said nothing to his research team the following morning about the bruise on his cheek or the cut on his lip. They went to work like normal, combining their efforts toward isolating the regenerative qualities of the Progenitor virus. It was slow, deliberate, exceedingly frustrating work, and the longer it went on, the more frustrating it got. After six months of labor, they still had nothing concrete to expand their work on. Taking the negative qualities of the Progenitor away while leaving the helpful regenerative qualities was like trying to remove the taste of food without changing any of the ingredients. The two could not be separated.

At noon, Birkin took a short break. He went to the break room, poured his fifth cup of coffee of the day, and bought a prepackaged apple pie from the vending machine. He fell into a chair and lowered his head into his hands.

"Have you heard about Dr. Marcus?"

Birkin lifted his head. One of the other resident scientists, whose name Birkin didn't even know, had poked his head into the break room. "Did you hear what happened?"

"Yes," Birkin grunted. "I heard it the moment it happened."

"What?"

Birkin had waited outside the astronomy tower that morning for Wesker to re-emerge, even though he still hadn't. Not long after Wesker and the soldiers had entered, Birkin had heard muffled noises that could only have been gunshots coming from underground. He did not say this, however. Instead he just set his head back on the table. "No, what happened?"

"He had a heart attack this morning. Security found him and drove him to the hospital."

A heart attack. That was original. "Is he alright?" Birkin asked blandly.

"Nobody knows. We can't seem to contact him. He wasn't at the Raccoon City Hospital, and security won't tell us his location."

"He must be at a private hospital," Birkin said, feeling sick.

"Probably. Somebody said his family is keeping it quiet for now."

Birkin hated the thought of participating in this gruesome masquerade. He wanted to tell his clueless coworker that Marcus had not suffered a heart attack, but had been shot to death by commandos in the early morning, and that Wesker had led them there. But instead, he only said, "It must be pretty serious if they haven't told us what his condition is."

"Yea," the scientist said somberly. "I'm sure they'll let us know sometime today. Let me know if you hear anything, okay? I've got to get going," he said, heading back down the hallway. Birkin could only nod as the man walked away.

Just two weeks ago, Birkin's parents had called long distance to talk to him and ask how everything was going. In the roughly fifteen months since he had been hired by Umbrella, he had talked to his parents exactly three times. They called on Christmas, on his birthday, and two weeks ago. There was a note of finality in his mother's voice as she talked to him, as if admitting to herself that her son was perfectly happy living on his own and had no need of his parents anymore, since in his entire time there, he had never once called them. He had cut the umbilical cord, so to speak, and much earlier than she would have preferred. It was the kind of hesitant conversation that made him doubt they would even bother to call next Christmas. When they asked him how things were, he told them that everything was fine. Everything was great.

It had been a lie, of course. Birkin still had trouble coping with the horrific side effects of the Progenitor virus, and working so hard to solve the problem without coming up with an answer sapped his enthusiasm on a daily basis. But even with all the difficulties, Birkin was capable of dealing with it. Now, after what had happened this morning, he wasn't so sure anymore. He could deal with hideous diseases and long days of hard work, but he didn't know if he could deal with murder. Especially a murder that was the focus of a hasty cover up. A murder he wasn't even supposed to know about.

He ate his apple pie without tasting it and downed the cup of coffee. He returned to his lab and went back to work, barely acknowledging his fellow scientists. He felt numb. When the lab phone rang, one of his assistants answered it.

"Dr. Birkin," he said, holding the phone out. "It's for you."

"I'm busy," Birkin grunted. "Is it important?"

The assistant seemed nervous. "Yes, sir. It's Dr. Spencer. He wants to talk to you."


	17. Chapter 17

17

Spencer studied the two men seated on the other side of his wide mahogany desk. On the right sat Wesker, wearing his mirrored sunglasses and feigning a look of polite disinterest, as always. On his left sat Birkin, sullen and unkempt, his hair a tangle and his eyes betraying a serious lack of sleep. In all his years of managing Umbrella's Raccoon City facilities, Spencer had never before had two brilliant minds like these working for him at the same time, and he enjoyed simply studying them, reading their expressions and gauging their reactions. Despite their intelligence, both of them were easy to read, easy to anticipate. Manipulating such amazing prodigies would be the high point of Spencer's entire career. These two would go on to accomplish great things, of that there was no doubt, but Spencer knew from experience that men always performed better when they were competing with someone else. And with Marcus successfully out of the way, Spencer had free reign to pit these two geniuses against each other. The fact that they were so young only made it more pleasurable. It was always good to get them early on, it was easier to train them that way.

"You might be wondering why I called you both here today," he said. "You probably suspect it has something to do with the unfortunate turn of events involving the late Dr. Marcus. Maybe it does, but that is coincidental. I would have called you here anyway, even if he had not met with such an untimely demise. I will admit, though, that his death makes things a bit more convenient in this respect."

"What do you mean?" Birkin interrupted.

"He means that Marcus' death was just the means to an end," Wesker said. "Don't you?"

Spencer smiled. Setting these two against each other was going to be fun indeed. "Yes, Wesker. That's what I mean. But it was not the only means, just the most appropriate one. Even if he were still alive, it would not change anything."

"The why did you kill him?" Birkin asked brazenly, and the anger in his voice was hard to hide. Spencer realized that Birkin was upset that Marcus had been killed at all, not just that he had not been involved in it or at least consulted first. The murder itself was what he found fault with, not just the method by which it was performed.

"He was out of control," Spencer said. "He was putting us all in danger. Hasn't your friend here told you what went on there?"

"No, I haven't," Wesker said. "I didn't think you wanted me to."

"Did he infect other people? Is that what happened?" Birkin asked, leaning forward, his expression grave. Combined with his bloodshot, sunken eyes, the look on his face reminded Spencer of a death's head mask.

"Yes, he infected five people. One of them was a young woman that he ordered security guards to kidnap for his experiment. Another was one of the janitors at the training mansion. You may have even met him."

Birkin collapsed back into his chair, his face losing color. "Oh, my God."

"Now do you understand why we had to do it?"

"He shot at us first," Wesker said, trying to justify his involvement. "We ordered him to give up, but he refused. We had no choice but to take him down."

Spencer raised a hand, gesturing toward Wesker. "It's all right, he wasn't blaming you. Were you, William?"

Birkin closed his eyes and shook his head, the hair hanging in front of his eyes swaying back and forth with the motion. "No, I wasn't blaming Wesker." He opened his eyes and leveled them at Spencer. "I was blaming you."

Spencer smiled, revealing bright, even teeth. Birkin would not have been surprised if they had been sharpened into points. "As well you should, dear boy. As well you should. I made the order, I'm ultimately responsible." He waved his hand as if the conversation topic was a bothersome mosquito. "But enough of that, I was about to tell you why I called you here in the first place."

"Yes," Wesker said, "Why did you send for us?"

"Because I'm going to shut down the training facility and reassign you both to different laboratories."

Spencer reveled in the stunned silence that followed. Wesker, behind his apparently unshakable exterior, was completely shocked by the decision, as Spencer knew he would be. After all, he had promised to let Wesker take over Marcus' work at the lab, so how could he do that if he was being reassigned? Birkin, if anything, looked like he believed he was the subject of some outrageous practical joke; he looked on the verge of laughing in despair. He covered his eyes with his hands, almost shaking as he tried to resist exploding into a temper tantrum. Spencer wallowed in the emotional torment playing out in front of him for a few moments before giving them back a semblance of stability.

"It's not as bad as you think. The labs will remain open for research, but the training facility itself will be discontinued. A new training facility is opening up in Arizona, so keeping this one running is no longer necessary. And your reassignment is not as drastic as it sounds. Wesker, I'm transferring you to the main Arklay laboratory to continue your study of Marcus' work. Birkin, I'm going to send you to the new lab in the center of the city, which you'll find has more advanced resources to aid you in your own research."

"Why send us to different labs?" Birkin asked. "Marcus wanted us to work together as much as possible."

"Yes, and Marcus is dead."

"You don't want us working together, then?" Wesker said, knowing the answer.

"You are both going to be working on drastically different projects," Spencer pointed out. "So you won't have much to talk about as far as your work goes. Feel free to associate with each other during your time off, but I doubt that you'll have much of it. You're both going to be very busy."

Suddenly, Birkin caught on. "Am I going to be in charge of the lab?"

After a short pause, Spencer nodded. "I'm promoting both of you to research project manager, effective immediately. Birkin will run the city lab and work on the medical uses of the Progenitor, while Wesker will run the Arklay lab and continue Marcus' work on the mutative qualities of the Progenitor."

Once more, Spencer carefully watched their reactions. Wesker sat up straighter in his chair, a satisfied smile just barely curving the edges of his mouth. Birkin set one elbow on the arm of the chair and rested his chin in his hand, watching Spencer as Spencer watched him back. Wesker was obviously happy with the outcome, but there was no fooling Birkin. He was calculating things in the back of his head, and Spencer could almost make out the equations floating there.

"Can I bring any of my assistants along?" Birkin ventured.

"Of course, if you like. There are other scientists already there who will be instructed to work for you as well. You'll have about thirty people under you."

"What about me?" Wesker asked eagerly.

"There are almost sixty people working here, and most of them will be under you, but not all. Some of them are independents who report only to me."

Birkin spoke up again. "And I'll be free to conduct whatever research I like?"

"I would expect you to continue the work you're already doing, but yes, you can work on anything you like. You've expressed an interest in using the Progenitor for medical advance, so the lab is well prepared to deal with work of that nature."

Birkin lifted himself out of the chair and stood. "I'd like to get started then, if that's all right with you. I have some things I want to finish up at the other lab."

"Go ahead," Spencer said.

Birkin gave Wesker one last look before leaving the office, moving like a man on a mission. Wesker shook his head as the door clicked shut, smiling to himself as if amused at something that no one else found funny.

"What on your mind?" Spencer asked.

Wesker reached into his pocket. "Do you care if I have a cigarette?" he asked, pulling out an unopened pack and a lighter.

"I don't mind. In fact, I'll have one as well," Spencer said, opening one of his desk drawers and taking out his own pack of cigarettes.

Wesker lit up and took a long drag. Spencer put a cigarette between his lips and Wesker held out the lighter to light it for him. "I didn't know you smoked," he said, putting the lighter away.

"Since I was seventeen. But back then, everyone smoked. It's a lot less socially acceptable now. They say it causes cancer."

Wesker took the cigarette from his mouth and held it between his fingers, blowing out a cloud of smoke. "It probably does. But there are worse diseases to get, I suppose."

Spencer laughed. "Indeed there are! Cancer would be a blessing compared to what we could be infected with."

"Have you had time to look over the notes I gave you?"

"Some of them."

"Marcus created something new. It's a completely new strain of the Progenitor. He called it the T-virus."

"Yes, I know."

"I'm still looking at his papers, but as far as I can tell, he didn't have time to do much testing with the T-virus. I think he discovered it just a day or two ago."

"That recently?"

"Yes, so he doesn't have a whole lot written about it. I want you to know that I don't know what we're dealing with. Marcus speculated that the T-virus was different from the Progenitor, but so far it seems to have the same basic qualities."

"Just perform the tests and see what happens."

"I'm going to, but as of right now, I don't have any idea what the T-virus does when injected directly into a living host. The security guard that Marcus infected entered post-resurrection phase, but he was killed by those leeches and the virus was passed on by them."

Spencer nodded and blew out smoke, tapping his cigarette and dropping the ashes to the floor. "I understand, Wesker. You have a few days to plan how best to proceed. Just follow your procedures."

"Yes, sir," Wesker said.

"And don't worry so much about the virus. Marcus' lab was just the training ground. The Arklay lab has many more secrets to offer you. You haven't even scratched the surface."


	18. Chapter 18

18

Like the training facility only a few miles away, the main Arklay lab run by Spencer was hidden underneath a beautifully constructed Victorian mansion. Wesker marveled at the glorious architecture at every turn, unable to connect the high-tech biological lab underground with the splendid, luxurious mansion above. It was even more complex and lavishly decorated than the mansion at the Marcus site. The lobby was enormous, with a wide central staircase in red velvet and an interior balcony going all the way around the second floor of the lobby. White marble pillars supported the high ceiling and an enormous crystal chandelier hung above the floor. To the left of the lobby was a huge banquet table with enough seats for fifty people, which then led off into a large kitchen area. To the left of the lobby was, for lack of a better term, an art gallery. A beautiful sculpture sat in the center of the room, reminding Wesker of the Venus de Milo. Paintings, portraits, and various works of art lined the walls, and even more of them were stacked in a rear supply room. For the most part, the first floor of the right wing of the mansion was reserved for displaying artwork. The second floor of the whole mansion was mostly for executive offices, numerous study and recreation rooms, and a large library. Wesker had thought that the mansion at the Marcus estate was awe-inspiring, but this mansion was probably twice the size, putting the other one to shame.

And that didn't even include the expansive courtyard behind the mansion, complete with a huge, water-spraying fountain, cobblestone walkways through a well-managed garden, and even a hedge maze. Behind that was the guard house, where the large number of security personnel stayed. Like the extravagant mansion and the stunning courtyard and garden, the guard house was also a work of architectural art. It had rooms for up to thirty security personnel, along with a large recreation room complete with a pool table a well-stocked bar, and even a small stage where musical performances were occasionally held.

But what interested Wesker the most was the well-maintained sense of secrecy and mystery the mansion and surrounding area emanated. Being in the mansion, he could almost imagine the secret passageways and winding staircases hidden within the walls. There were concealed doors and secret switches that led to special sections of the mansion and laboratory underneath. Wesker did not inquire about their purpose, but was fascinated with them just the same. The only people with clearance to be in the mansion without a chaperone were employees of Umbrella, so why such secrecy and concealment? He could have understood it more if average civilians and other visitors were common, but they were not.

The sheer scale of the operation was mind-blowing at times. The enormous laboratory complex built underneath the mansion was three times the size of the lab at the Marcus estate. It didn't just contain the standard research labs and observation rooms, it was the most extensive and varied scientific compound that Wesker had ever heard of. It had dozens of separate labs, each working on a different aspect of the Progenitor. It had a huge underground water tank where they tested the virus on aquatic species. It even had its own power plant that generated enough electricity to run the entire lab complex.

And it wasn't even complete yet. There were plans to extend the lab underneath the courtyard as well. And now that the training facility was being shut down, the lab had to be expanded to house the increased number of scientists working there. Wesker was amazed by the plans in progress, and was excited to be involved in such a wide-ranging project.

"How old is this place anyway?" he asked Spencer one evening while they were discussing the day's work.

"Would you believe only sixteen years?" Spencer answered. "The mansion was built in 1970. The labs were built later, but they were mostly completed by 1978."

"I'm older than this building. That amazes me."

"Some people assume that the mansion is a historic site. We've had inquiries by archeological societies about its age and previous owners. They like to think that someone like Thomas Jefferson must have lived here at one time."

"Who was the architect?"

Spencer smiled, and leaned back in his chair. "A brilliant man named George Trevor. We hired him to design something more like a modern office building, something functional but with a sense of artistic beauty. He gave us the design for this mansion instead. I guess you could say he was a man of vision."

"He must have been to create a place like this."

"Granted, we made changes to his basic design, but he was the principle driving force behind the construction of this building. I supervised the project from the beginning."

"You did?" Wesker asked, surprised.

Spencer nodded. "I'm the one who chose Raccoon City as our central location. I've personally overseen every development that's taken place here since the lab was built."

"I didn't know that," Wesker said. "Have you always worked with Umbrella?"

At that, Spencer chuckled softly, as if Wesker was a child asking if he was Santa Claus. He did it frequently, and it bothered Wesker sometimes. He asked out of polite curiosity, not because he was truly interested. The response, however, made him take an interest.

"I'm one of the founders of Umbrella as it is today," Spencer said, his voice loaded with pride and boastful intensity. "Alexander Ashford and I reinvented the company back in 1953. At the time, it was just a bulk chemical distributor owned by his father. We were both amateur chemists ourselves, and wanted to develop new chemicals and medicines instead of just buying and selling them. We had some moderate success, and set up a small laboratory where we could synthesize new compounds. That was almost thirty years ago."

He paused, apparently overwhelmed in wistful nostalgia, giving Wesker time to venture a question. "Ashford is the one who created the Progenitor, isn't he?"

"Yes, he discovered it in 1965," Spencer said distantly, as if deep in thought. "By that time, we had made a small fortune designing some chemical compounds used in cosmetics of the day. Ashford wanted to build a state-of-the-art biological laboratory where he could work on vaccines and other medical products. I thought the venture was too risky, and I guess it caused a rift between us. He build an advanced laboratory in Antarctica, as you might be aware, while I stayed here and had this lab built. I guess we just went our separate ways."

Surprised at the sentimental tone Spencer had taken, Wesker didn't know what to say. His usually ruthless, cold-hearted employer was not the type to get emotional or mushy over events of the past. Spencer was the kind of man who kept his emotions, if he even had any, closely in check. But Wesker could sense the powerful sadness in his eyes, and it profoundly worried him. Why was Spencer getting to emotional over this?

"I'm sorry," Spencer said, coming out of his trance. "I guess you wouldn't know about what happened, would you?"

"About what?"

"Alexander Ashford died just a few months ago," Spencer said, shaking his head sadly. "He was killed in an accident at the Antarctica lab. We hadn't spoken in years, and I guess I regret it now."

"I'm sorry, sir," Wesker said sincerely. "I didn't know."

"It's all right. With all the excitement recently, the problem with Marcus and everything, I guess I forgot all about it. I hadn't really thought about it until now. It was such a tragedy, perhaps I was just distracting myself so I didn't have to think about it."

"What happened?"

"I was never given all the details. They were doing some sort of construction and Ashford was supervising the work, when some scaffolding collapsed in high wind. Either that, or a support beam gave way, I'm not sure which. All I know is that eight men were killed in the accident and their bodies were never recovered."

"That's terrible," Wesker said. "Why not?"

"The construction was taking place at the edge of the ice. On the edge of a glacier cliff overlooking the ocean, in other words. The collapsed portion of the construction fell off the cliff and into the freezing water below. The bodies were never found."

Spencer let out a great mournful sigh and shook his head again. "Ashford was a great man. He shouldn't have died that way. He shouldn't have died at all."


	19. Chapter 19

19

When doing the same thing every day, time goes by surprisingly quickly. Weeks and months fly by without warning, and the next thing you know, you're a year older and haven't accomplished everything you set out to in the beginning. Each day blends into the next with graceful ease and the daily cycle begins again.

Birkin didn't even bother to look at his calendar anymore. His body adapted itself to a grueling personal schedule, and he stuck to it seven days a week without fail. As far as he was concerned, people who took days off weren't dedicated enough. He woke at seven every morning, even on weekends, even on holidays, and worked straight through until ten o'clock at night, with only short food and bathroom breaks scattered in between waking and sleeping. He would then spend four hours reading the most recent scientific journals to keep himself informed on the latest discoveries and projects. He would fall into bed at roughly two in the morning and get up at seven the next day, to do it all over again. What he lacked in sleep he made up for in coffee; his caffeine addiction was now out of control. On an average day, he would drink fifteen cups of coffee.

Day in and day out, he would spend his time working in the labs, trying to single out the regenerative aspect of the Progenitor while removing the unwanted qualities. Birkin once compared his work to removing the taste of food without changing the ingredients, but he didn't feel that way now. He liked to think of the virus as green paint, created by mixing negative blue characteristics with positive yellow ones. All he had to do was reverse the mixing process and separate the original pigments. For a year, that is what he had been trying to accomplish.

Most of the lab assistants and other scientists that worked with him quickly asked for transfers or moved on to more productive endeavors. In a year, he had gone through almost fifty research assistants, quickly driving them to their breaking points by the long, dull hours, complete lack of any recreation time, and Birkin's own incompatible personality. He was harsh, quick to anger, impossible to argue with, and a hopeless perfectionist. He ran the lab like a warden of a prison and treated the other scientists working there like inmates.

Since his promotion to research project manager at the Raccoon City lab, Birkin had successfully scared away all but three of the other permanent employees there. And despite all complaints about him, his rough methods, and total lack of people skills, Spencer never made a move against him. This especially grated on the older scientists, who had been working in the field longer than Birkin had been alive, and resented the arrogant twenty-year-old who treated them like ignorant office temps. Whether they liked it or not, Birkin was there to stay.

Two new employees began working there one day, and Birkin started in on them before he even knew what their names were. He rarely bothered with names anyway, preferring to point and say, "Hey, you." He gave them instructions and shoved them into different rooms to perform them, and went on to his own work. The day passed like any other.

Most of the other scientists there would finish up their work by five or six in the evening. Usually, Birkin was alone by the time he finished his own work, and locked up the labs by himself. But this time, as he was turning the lights off in some of the other labs, mostly lost in his own thoughts about what he would work on tomorrow, he noticed that one of the new employees he had bossed around that morning was still in the lab.

He stuck his head in the door. "You're still here?" he asked gruffly.

The new lab assistant, a young woman with straight, dull blonde hair reaching to her shoulders, looked up from a microscope. "Yes, Dr. Birkin," she said hesitantly. "I'm cataloguing the new blood samples."

Birkin dropped his worn briefcase on the floor and approached the lab table. "I thought I told you to plot the new infection time scale. That other new guy was supposed to catalogue the samples."

"Yes," the woman replied, "but he didn't finish them all. I finished my work at about five o'clock. He left at six, so I'm finishing them up for tomorrow."

"How many do you have left?"

"Sixteen, I think."

Birkin flipped through the pages of the open log book on the table next to her. He could see when her hand writing took over from the previous person, barely half way through. "He only logged half of the samples?"

"Yes, he spent most of the day working with the men in the lab down the hall. He didn't start these until noon."

Birkin closed the book. "Who told him to do that?"

"I don't think anyone did, sir."

"I gave him specific instructions. If he can't do what he's told, I don't want him working here. He obviously can't be trusted to follow orders."

The woman, looking uncomfortable, nodded passive agreement. "I guess not, sir."

If the new assistant had been in the room at that moment, Birkin would have exploded at him. But there was no sense in getting angry when the cause of his anger wasn't even there, and it wasn't fair to the other new assistant to suffer Birkin's wrath. But the assistant who had disregarded his orders was already fired as far as Birkin was concerned.

"You shouldn't have to do his job," Birkin said. "Let me help you finish those up, so we can get out of here."

The woman smiled. "Thank you, sir."

Working together, it only took half an hour to complete the rest of the blood samples. They closed up the lab and went to the elevator. Birkin glanced at his watch and frowned. It was nearly eleven, he would have to cut tonight's reading short.

"When you see him tomorrow, tell him that I want to talk to him," Birkin said as the elevator doors closed. Birkin punched the button for the next floor up.

"Yes, sir," the woman said.

The elevator rose up and the doors opened again. Birkin stepped out and had taken a few steps down the hall when the woman called after him. "Dr. Birkin?"

He turned around and saw that she was holding the elevator door open. "Yes?"

"Aren't you done for the day, sir?"

"Yes, I am."

"Do you have to get something? Do you want me to hold the elevator for you?"

"No," he said. "I live here at the lab."

"Oh, I didn't know that," the woman said, feeling foolish. "I'll see you tomorrow, sir."

"Yes," he said, and then added, "Have a good evening."

"You too, sir." She let the elevator doors close and Birkin watched as the numbers above the door went up to the ground floor. He stood there in the hall for almost a minute, lost in his thoughts.

Since he had come to this lab, he had never once wished any of the other employees a good evening. A few times they had said it to him, and he customarily brushed them off when they did. He had no place for vague pleasantries, not when he was working. And yet, he had said it to her without thinking, he said it naturally. And to his extreme surprise, he found that he meant it. She had stayed as late as he did, finishing someone else's work. If nothing else, it deserved praise.

The next morning, the assistant who disobeyed him came to work and found Birkin waiting for him. Birkin spent twenty minutes yelling at him before sending him off to work. He lasted two more days before requesting a transfer, and was gone less than a week after that. Birkin was glad to be rid of him.

The woman, however, stayed at the lab and worked out rather well. On most nights, she worked as late as Birkin himself did, and after a few weeks Birkin began assigning her to work in the central lab, where he worked most of the day. When he was satisfied of her competence, he started giving her long-term assignments instead of just giving her some different task to do every day. While he worked tirelessly all day, attempting to map the cellular surface of the Progenitor in the hopes of learning the receptor sites, the woman was never more than a few yards away, studying the different cellular parts of the virus and exposing them to living tissue to study the results. Some days they barely said a word to each other even though they worked so closely.

In a few short months, they had found a perfect working partnership and Birkin quickly promoted her within the lab hierarchy until she worked as his personal research partner. She never complained about the hard work, she never missed a day, and she never did anything wrong. Finally, Birkin had found someone he could work with. It wasn't until she had been working at the lab for six months that Birkin realized that there was something he still didn't know about her.

Late one evening, they were getting ready to leave. As usual, they were the last two people in the lab, everyone else already gone for the night. Birkin turned off the computers and other electronic devices as the woman put away files and racks of used test samples. Birkin shut off the lights and they walked down the hall to the elevator, as they had done dozens of times over the past few months. The conversation, as always, consisted solely of the work done during the day and the work planned for tomorrow.

When the elevator stopped at his floor, Birkin didn't step off right away. He waited a moment, collecting his thoughts, and looked at his assistant. "You did very good work today," he said. "I should say it more often."

"Thank you," she said, and Birkin could almost see her cheeks turning red. "I do the best I can, sir."

"You worked with me for months now, and I feel stupid having to ask this ..." he said haltingly. He looked up at her, hoping she knew what he was going to ask.

"What is it?"

He sighed and just said it. "I don't know your name."

The woman smiled, and for the slightest moment, Birkin actually saw her as a woman and not just an intelligent fellow scientist. Surprisingly, he found himself smiling as well.

"My name is Annette," she said. "Annette Porter. If it makes you feel better, I don't know what your first name is."

"William," he said awkwardly. His head began to swim and he felt strangely dizzy.

Annette stuck out her hand. "Pleased to meet you, William."

Birkin shook her hand, and could not stop from laughing at the inherent silliness of the situation. Annette laughed as well, and Birkin liked the sound. He realized that it had been a very long time since he'd had any reason to laugh. He did not tolerate foolishness or merriment at the lab, since they tended to get in the way of serious work, and as a result, he rarely had the chance to genuinely laugh at something.

"Do you live in town?" he asked, the words popping out before he had a chance to think about them.

"I rent an apartment, yes."

"Do you ..." he had difficulty asking her, "Do you have anyone waiting for you?"

Annette folded her hands in front of her and shook her head. "No, I really don't know anyone outside the lab."

"Are you doing anything tonight?"

She smiled again, and Birkin suddenly felt a contented warmth settle into his chest. As if someone had simply flipped a switch, Birkin became happy. It amazed him, even much later, that something as simple as a woman's smile could melt away months of work-related stress and fatigue. He had not expected such a drastic turn of events.

Birkin, not surprisingly, had never had a girlfriend. Child prodigies rarely do, since they are strictly academic-minded and are usually much younger than their immediate peers. A sixteen-year-old genius surrounded by twenty-year-old ordinary students has a hard time fitting in to the social culture of a university. It didn't bother him at all at the time, since he would rather have been in the chemistry labs or the library than out with a girl anyway. His youthful hormones took a back seat to his intellectual obsessions. And once he had been hired by Umbrella, there had been no women around anyway, and little time to go out looking for them. And until that moment, he had not realized just how lonely he really was

Fate, it seemed, had sensed his loneliness, even when he hadn't, and dropped someone into his life without him even realizing it. Someone named Annette Porter.

"I don't have anything planned," she said. "But it's getting pretty late. I don't think there's a lot of places still open."

"I didn't mean that," Birkin said. "I was just wondering if you'd like to visit my room for a little while. Maybe have a drink or something."

She didn't say anything right away, and for a horrible second, Birkin thought she was going to turn him down. "I'd love to," she said firmly, as if she'd debated it and was convinced that it was a good idea.

They went down the hall and to the room where Birkin stayed. It was actually a large supply room converted into a living space, complete with a bed, desk, refrigerator, and stove. The appliances didn't find much use, since Birkin spent his entire day in the labs downstairs. The room was pretty much used exclusively for sleeping.

For the first time since his time at the training facility, when he and Wesker were still good friends, he found himself pleasantly wasting time, just having a conversation with someone. It had been awhile, and he was out of practice, but Annette energetically questioned him about his life and his work, and he thoroughly enjoyed listening to her talk about herself as well. He had expected her to stay an hour or two, but the next thing he knew it was almost four in the morning and they were still talking.

That was the first night they spent together.


	20. Chapter 20

20

It was not until Wesker met "Lisa" that he realized why Spencer had chosen him to take care of Marcus. It had nothing to do with his potential as a scientist, or Birkin's morally stringent views. Spencer hadn't chosen him because he liked him, or trusted him, or anything so benevolent. He didn't even do it to test Wesker's loyalty, although that was a small part of it. Spencer chose him in order to bond him permanently to the company, to make it impossible for Wesker to back out when things got to much for him.

To blackmail him, in other words.

"What you are about to see is the most secret project at this facility," Spencer told him as they descended down into the labs one day. "You've proven yourself trustworthy and dependable, and dedicated as well. I'm confident that you will be able to handle the ramifications of this project."

"What kind of ramifications?"

"It's hard to explain," Spencer said evasively. "It's just that this project implies some ... uncomfortable truths."

They went down in an elevator to one of the lowest levels, which Wesker had so far not been given permission to visit. Spencer entered a pass code into the number pad and the door slid open. They headed down the sterile white hallway to the unmarked double doors at the end.

Spencer pushed them open and ushered Wesker inside.

The circular lab room he entered was larger than any of the others in the upper levels. Two rows of computers were in the center, and a series of observation rooms lined the outside wall of the lab, twelve rooms in all. The room was populated with about a dozen scientists, half of them wearing full hazard suits and a few of the others wearing face masks. They glanced up when Spencer and Wesker entered, but said nothing and returned to their respective jobs. The room was brightly illuminated with fluorescent lighting, making Wesker glad he always wore his sunglasses.

Spencer walked through the room and Wesker watched as the scientists visibly backed away as he passed by them. It was like Moses parting the Red Sea. Wesker followed him hesitantly, trying to ignore the suspicious stares the other scientists gave him. He had a feeling that they already knew who he was.

The observation room at the opposite side of the circular lab was much longer than the others. As Wesker approached, he saw that it was divided into several anterooms before the actual observation chamber, each with its own number pad to grant entry.

Wesker looked through the several panes of glass into the observation room at the far end. There was a woman inside, or at least Wesker guessed it was a woman. She was filthy dirty, her long blonde hair hanging in front of her face like dead weeds. He clothes were ragged and torn up, and she shambled around the room aimlessly, walking more like a gorilla than a human being. Her wrists were bound with solid metal manacles that led to a chain around her neck, which then extended to the wall, where it was bolted in several places. She looked like some caged animal in a zoo, and Wesker could not take his eyes away from her.

"This is Lisa," Spencer said, gesturing toward the woman. "Lisa, meet Wesker. He's going to be your caretaker from now on."

Wesker got closer to the glass to get a better look. He tried the door but it was locked.

"There are three doors," Spencer explained. "You need three different access codes to get to her. She's chained very securely, but we can't take any chances, you understand."

"Why is she in there?"

"Lisa is our most secret project. She is a Typhoid Mary."

Wesker looked at him and then back at Lisa. "What are you talking about?"

"She's infected with the Progenitor, and has been for almost fifteen years now."

"You mean she's ...?"

Spencer shook his head. "No, she isn't. The virus, for some reason we simply cannot understand, has not killed her. She's alive, but unfortunately, she is violently insane. Whether or not it's from the virus, we cannot say."

"Fifteen years?" Wesker asked in amazement. "And you've kept her here all that time?"

"What would you expect us to do? She's infected with the virus."

"And it hasn't killed her?"

"No, it hasn't."

"Can I get a closer look?"

Spencer called over one of the other scientists, who entered the codes to the first two doors. He apologized for not knowing the code to the final door. "That's all right," Spencer said. "I think this is close enough."

Wesker stared through the single pane of glass at the woman in the room. Upon closer inspection, he saw that her wrists were bruised and rubbed raw from the manacles, which looked as if they hadn't been removed in years. Her clothes, a blue shirt and brown pants, were torn to shreds, hanging off her body in tatters. Her skin was filthy, scabbed and blistered in places, and her hair hung limply over her face, obscuring it.

"Who is she?" Wesker asked.

"I told you. Her name is Lisa."

"That's not what I mean. Who is she really?"

Spencer folded his hands behind his back and shook his head slowly. "Sorry, Wesker, but there are some secrets even you are not privy to yet. Let's just say that she is a very unfortunate individual who is not here of her own free will."

"And she's been here for fifteen years."

"Yes."

"Jesus," Wesker whispered. He rubbed his chin nervously, staring at the woman, trying to come to grips with the emotional reaction stirring within him. At one end, he was disgusted, completely horrified at the thought of someone imprisoned in the lab for so long. At another end, he was amazed by the fact that she had survived with the virus for that entire time. And at yet another end, he was fascinated by her, profoundly interested in who she was and why she was there. He was captivated and revolted at the same time, filled with moral outrage and professional interest simultaneously.

How could she have survived? The Progenitor killed everyone it infected without exception. No one could have a natural immunity to a virus; even the common cold affected everyone equally. The Progenitor was the same way. So how come the Progenitor didn't affect her?

"She must really be a Typhoid Mary," he said after awhile. "I don't mean to second-guess the other scientists here, but I don't understand how she can just be immune to it. There has to be some physical reason."

"Whatever it is, we haven't been able to discern what it is in fifteen years of study."

Suddenly, as if awaked from her stupor by the talking, the woman looked up at them, and Wesker staggered backward, suppressing the urge to shriek in fear. Spencer did not react as much, but he looked away just the same when the woman raised her face.

Because it wasn't her face. Wesker covered his mouth as if about to vomit, as he stared at the decaying skin hung over the woman's features. It appeared as if she had torn someone else's face off and placed it over her own. Dark, insane eyes looked out from behind the empty eye holes in the skin mask, partially concealed by the dirty hair hanging on front of it.

"My God ..."

"As I said, Lisa is quite insane. She tears the faces from anyone who gets close to her and wears them."

Wesker stared at Spencer in utter disbelief. "Anyone who ..." He stared back at her, but she had resumed her previous pose and he could no longer see the hideous mask she wore. But for the few seconds he had seen it, it occurred to him that it could not have been that old, or it would have been visibly more decayed and rotted. The implied truth of the situation struck him in the face.

"How many people has she killed?" he asked.

"Maybe a dozen," Spencer replied. "She killed one of the researchers here just last year. He entered the observation room to inject her with a new strain of the Progenitor and somehow, she got a hold of him. He must have been standing too close. She tore off the helmet to his hazard suit and strangled him. Then, she ripped his face off and wore it."

Wesker could not take it any longer. He looked away from the woman and faced the other direction, leaning over and putting his hands on his knees. "I think I'm going to be sick."

"You wouldn't be the first," Spencer said lightly.

"The face she ... the face she's wearing right now. It doesn't look that old."

"It's about a week old," Spencer said. "It belonged to another test subject."

Wesker stood back up slowly, his breathing slowed. He cast a confused, worried look at Spencer. "Another test subject?"

Spencer looked him right in the eye, and Wesker saw nothing there. No fear, no guilt, no trace of any emotion that might make him seem human. It was like looking into a bottomless pit. Wesker quickly went back through the doors and returned the lab proper. He wasn't sure if he was trying to get farther away from Lisa, or from Spencer.


	21. Chapter 21

21

Two years passed with deliberate, methodical slowness. Wesker spent his days, from eight in the morning until four in the afternoon, supervising the work done at the Arklay labs. Not all of the projects there fell under his jurisdiction, but enough of them did that many of the other scientists there began to wonder if it was Wesker or Spencer who was really in charge. Wesker managed people effectively and fairly, and so there were few who complained about his youth. He was still only twenty-two, half the age of the some of the men working under him, but few people noticed it anymore. Wesker carried himself like a seasoned professional, adeptly managing and balancing the numerous projects going at the lab, showing great natural skill at the difficult job of handling the office politics of a large corporation. Under his almost effortless management, the Arklay lab ran smoothly and efficiently.

In the evenings, from four until roughly ten, Wesker performed his own experiments and engaged in his own personal projects. Some nights, he worked closely with Spencer with some aspect of the company. Other nights, he closed himself in the library and read until midnight. His itinerary was varied, but always packed. He took Sundays off, at least most of the time. When he did, he spent it sleeping.

He rented a house in downtown Raccoon City, but due to his busy schedule he was almost never there. His neighbors had no complaints, and his landlord didn't care as long as the rent was paid and nothing was damaged. For the most part, however, the lab was his home. His fellow employees were his friends and his work was his life. And his work was very fulfilling indeed.

A t the time, no one had fully grasped the staggering importance of Marcus' work. It was revolutionary, to be sure, but no one, not even Spencer, realized just how revolutionary it was. It took Wesker almost a year to discover its hidden potential, to uncover what made it so drastically different from its predecessor, the Progenitor.

He supposed it took so long to discover because of its curious habit of turning its hosts into zombies, just like the Progenitor did. That one similarity led most people to believe that the two viruses were nearly the same then, but Wesker eventually altered one of his experiments, out of curiosity, to see what would happen if the T-virus was injected directly into a living human host. Afterward, he was stunned that he had never performed the experiment that way before.

The T-virus somehow changed once it infected a host. The fascinating aspect of the T-virus infection, which no one had adequately explained, was that if an infected host passed the virus on to another host, then that second host became a zombie, exactly the way the Progenitor would have. Wesker called it "secondary infection." But that first host, the original source, was mutated to an unbelievable degree. When a human, for example was infected with the pure form of the T-virus, he or she changed into a grotesque, humanoid gargantuan.

The hosts sometimes reached heights of seven and a half feet tall when full infection took hold. They lost all skin pigmentation and looked like giant albinos, for some reason no one could discern, and also lost all their hair. They lost almost all of their mobility, even as they gained strength and muscle, and moved like slow robots. Sometimes they were the victim of other bizarre mutations, like a third arm growing from one shoulder. Some test subjects developed transparent skin. Others grew hideous growths from one of their hands or feet, turning it into a club made of misshapen flesh. One of the lab assistants, Wesker wasn't sure who, originally dubbed them Tyrants, after the T-virus.

Like the regular zombies, these mutated humans were almost impossible to kill. Fire destroyed them, but not much else did. They survived when electrocuted, when underwater, in sub-zero temperatures, and in a variety of other deadly environments. Out of every ten subjects, eight of them were mutated in such a way that made them useless for further experimentation, and were destroyed. The other two, however ...

Wesker became fully desensitized to the work they did after a few months. At one time, the thought of infecting a living person to turn him into an inhuman beast would horrify him, but not anymore.

He effectively turned off his emotions when he was working, and refused to think of the poor souls being experimented on as anything other than test subjects. If he let himself feel sorry for them, or admit that they were committing heinous crimes against humanity, he would not have been able to live with himself. And since the work he was doing was extremely confidential and extremely top-secret, if he couldn't live with himself then he wouldn't live at all. In two years, they had been forced to turn three of their own workers into test subjects when they gave signs of being unable to deal with the work anymore. It was disagreeable work, but under no circumstances could details of their work be revealed. If someone had a sudden attack of conscience and became a liability, the only possible course of action was to remove them permanently. Wesker approved of it only because they had no choice.

Sometimes late at night, either in the lab or at his house, when he was alone and left with nothing but his thoughts, he would ponder if he could live with himself. How many people had they experimented on by now? A hundred? Maybe more? Where they came from, Wesker never knew, and he never asked. But he sensed a much larger operation at work, since some of the unwilling subjects spoke no English. They would cry out in their own language, be it Spanish or Japanese or Russian, as they entered the observation rooms and became infected. And Wesker would watch them, suppressing any pity or remorse he felt, and use them as heartlessly as he would use a rabbit or dog to perform his experiments. He wondered if it made him inhuman, if he was becoming as monstrous as those individuals he infected. He wondered about his own humanity, he wondered about his sanity. Could a truly sane person behave so inhumanly? If someone's conscience was dead, did that not make them dead as well? Wesker spent some long hours searching himself for the faint traces that remained of his humanity, but he always found them, buried deep in the back, hidden by years of administering controlled torture. He could turn off his humanity, but he still possessed it.

Spencer, on the other hand, was harder to figure out. He had been in charge of the project for over a decade, whereas Wesker had only been in charge for two years. Would Wesker retain any trace of his former humanity after seventeen years? Of course, that was assuming that Spencer had been human to begin with, something else Wesker wondered about. At times, such as when getting sentimental about his former partner Alexander Ashford, Spencer could seem very human indeed. But at others, Spencer became a ruthless, callous fiend capable of the most atrocious acts of cruelty and premeditated evil. Wesker, thankfully, never found himself that far gone.

But still, what they were doing went far beyond simply illegal. It was illegal, unethical, immoral, unconscionable, and many others. What they were doing in the lab made the Holocaust look acceptable by comparison.

One day, Wesker brought the topic up in conversation. "What would we do if people ever found out?" he asked Spencer.

"They're never going to find out," Spencer replied, as if the question had been a balloon and his answer was a pin used to pop it.

"But what if they did?" Wesker asked. "What if someone discovered what we're doing at this lab and told the press? What if our big secret got out?"

Spencer eyes him suspiciously. "Why do you ask? Do you suspect someone of–"

"No," Wesker said firmly. "Nothing like that. I just want to know."

"Why?"

"Oh, come on," Wesker said, almost laughing at Spencer's clumsy evasion of the question. "Call it scientific curiosity. I mean, there has to be some kind of emergency procedure, doesn't there? We have to have some kind of plan, some course of action in case of an information leak?"

Spencer grunted and said, "Sure there is. It's called 'Get away as fast as you can and hope no one finds you.' It's the only plan I know of."

"What do you mean?"

"Wesker, think about it," Spencer said, getting irritated. "How would you cover up something on this scale? If anyone ever found out, there really is nothing that we could do. Denial would not suffice for long, and there is no way we could erase the evidence. If the authorities heard rumors about our activities here and wanted to look around for themselves, what could we do to stop them?"

"Probably nothing without appearing guilty."

"Exactly. If anyone ever found out about this place, my only advice would be to scrape together your life savings and find some third world country to hide out in."

"You can't be serious."

"I'm always serious. You should know better than that by now."

"So we have no emergency plans?" Wesker asked incredulously.

"None at all. That is precisely why the security here is so important. No one may discover what goes on here. If it ever got out, we would all be finished."

"Not just us," Wesker added. "All of Umbrella would be finished."

"But it will never happen," Spencer stressed. "Our security is far too effective. And besides, as you know, we have many allies in the local government that assist us in keeping certain details under wraps."

"The police?" Wesker suggested.

"Yes, and several members of the Raccoon City Council as well. Even Mayor Warren, as you probably know. We're working on getting one of our own people elected next year, when Warren retires. We're also trying to get the Chief of police on our payroll, but it takes time."

"Bribing city officials is illegal, if I'm not mistaken."

Spencer waved the comment away. "Please, we don't stoop to plain bribery. We make large donations to city projects and then lean on them. It's actually a common practice with large corporations. We ask for favors in return for financial assistance."

"Bribery, in other words."

Spencer glared at him, and Wesker could not help but smile. At one time, the ice cold stare would have frozen his blood, but he had been working with Spencer too long to be effected by his theatrics anymore. On a deep level, he was still scared of the man, but in general he knew that he was too involved in the projects for Spencer to truly threaten or antagonize him. So Wesker behaved insubordinately at times, without fear of reprisal.

"We do whatever we have to do," Spencer grumbled. And then, reluctantly, "But there are times when I wonder if paying them is enough. We can pay money for loyalty and never receive it. We might have to take more direct steps to ensure our safety."

"What are you thinking of?"

"Putting someone in the police station to keep an eye on things. If our business with the Chief of police is successful, I was planning to assign someone a position at the police station to make sure of the Chief's loyalty."

"Anyone in particular you have in mind?"

"Not really. It's just an idea. We're not sure yet if the Chief can be bought."

"What's his name?"

"Brian Irons. He's worked in the RCPD for fifteen years, and his record there is spotless, but our boys have uncovered some pretty hefty gambling debts hanging over him. He's also an amateur art collector, and he's gone into more debt acquiring some expensive pieces."

"That's promising."

"Yes. We'll see how it turns out."


	22. Chapter 22

22

"Come here and see this," Annette said, waving her arm enthusiastically, her eyes looking through the microscope. "Come here and look at this!"

Birkin set his notebook down on the edge of the lab table and hurried over to the microscope. Annette got out of the way and almost shoved Birkin's head against the eye piece. He stared down into the greatly magnified image of human skin cells reacting to a synthesized protein by-product they had recently begun working on.

Slowly, he watched as the skin cells, which were visibly eroded on the outer cell wall, slowly regenerate their deteriorated portions in just a few seconds. Annette, hands on his shoulders, snickered gleefully.

"We did it," she whispered in his ear. "We did it, honey."

Birkin moved away from the microscope, a look of stunned amazement on his face. He looked at Annette and said it himself. "We did it," he said, and then laughed. Annette jumped forward to embrace him and he spun her around excitedly, arms wrapped tightly around her. She laughed, her hair whipping around his face, and kissed him passionately. Birkin set her back on the ground and kissed her back before pulling away to look through the microscope once more.

For months, they had been attempting to alter one of the many protein enzymes secreted by Progenitor-infected hosts into something that could heal damaged human cells without the kind of hideous negative side effects the Progenitor was plagued by. Skin cells were common for such testing because they were larger than other types of cells and subject to more kinds of cellular damage. Also, there was a lot of money is cosmetic products, and a new medication that could heal damaged skin could be a very lucrative enterprise. Not that Birkin would openly admit to doing such profit-based science, but even he had to admit that laboratories such as this were not cheap to run, and they occasionally had to create marketable products to justify their existence. Now, after only a few months of searching, it seemed they had found exactly what they were searching for.

"I can't believe it," Birkin said, looking through the microscope. The cells healed perfectly when exposed to the enzyme. He tried not to get his hopes up too much, since they still had to perform dozens of other tests to make sure the enzyme was safe to use. It would take several more months of work, but they had just jumped the biggest hurdle.

Annette rested her head on his shoulder. "I knew you could do it, honey."

"I couldn't have done it without you," he replied, looking at her with a warm smile on his face. He touched her face gingerly. "We did it together."

She smiled lovingly and kissed him again. "Sure you could have, it just would have taken longer."

"If you say so," he said, and in response she jokingly punched him in the ribs.

"You're not supposed to agree with me."

Birkin turned around and put his arms around her. "Okay, I promise never to agree with you again."

Annette laughed again, and it was a sound that Birkin could never get enough of. Deep down, he wondered if he had been right the first time, and could not have done it without her. These days, he wondered if he could do anything without her.

In two years, they had become inseparable. When Annette moved into the lab with him soon after they began seeing each other, he expanded the living quarters to occupy an adjacent room. They spent almost every moment together, either working side by side in the labs, spending time together after work, or sleeping together at night. It was as if an entire new world had opened up before Birkin, or perhaps the same world viewed through new eyes. He looked back at his life before she arrived and shivered at the thought of his one-sided, lonely existence. He hadn't been an entire person before, he knew that now, and it had taken Annette to give him the rest of his life.

When they got to know each other, Birkin was amazed at how similar their backgrounds were. Like him, she had been an only child and a child prodigy, fascinated with science and chemistry before she got out of elementary school. She had graduated from college at age twenty, three years later than he had but two years earlier than most. She had come to Umbrella because they had the most advanced resources to put at her disposal, but unlike Birkin, they had underestimated her potential and just assigned her to a lab without giving her a real chance to demonstrate her worth. Luckily for them both, she had been assigned to Birkin's lab. It only took him six months to realize how perfect she was.

They ran the lab together now. On paper, Birkin was still the research project manager, but in reality he and Annette shared the position. They conferred together on every decision, but it was usually unnecessary, since they agreed on almost everything. Never in his life had Birkin found someone who so perfectly mirrored his own ideas, views, and personal beliefs. They even had the same favorite color. He had truly found the perfect woman.

"Let's call Spencer right now and tell him the good news," Annette suggested.

"How about we wait until tomorrow? Let all the preliminary tests run first and tell him in the morning."

"If that's what you want."

Birkin gently held her hands and let their fingers intertwine. "Besides, I already made plans for tonight."

"Oh, really?"

"Yes. Spencer can wait another day."

They spent the remainder of the day finishing some early test runs with the new enzyme, exposing it to different skin cells with different kinds of damage, exposing it to other cell types to test for possible negative reactions, running a wide variety of standard tests to check for allergic properties or other harmful reactions, the usual for any new medical or cosmetic product being developed. But the work went quickly and gracefully, lightened by the knowledge that they were already halfway there. Most of the workers went home by seven, but Annette and Birkin stayed in the labs until ten. They had a few months of the same thing to look forward to, but it was better than spending the next two months still looking for a suitable product. By the time they left the lab, they were giddy and euphoric.

"I'll make dinner," Birkin said as they returned to their living quarters, his arm draped over Annette's shoulder. When they walked inside, Birkin set his worn leather briefcase on the floor and tossed his white lab coat over the back of a chair. Annette strolled away, looking over her shoulder at him.

"What are we having?"

"Guess."

"How about spaghetti?" she laughed. "It's the only thing you know how to make."

Birkin feigned offense at the remark. "Hey, I can make some great sandwiches. I'd advise you not to criticize my culinary brilliance."

"Sure thing, honey," Annette said sarcastically. "I'll take a shower while you boil the pasta, okay?"

"Don't take too long."

"I won't."

Birkin changed clothes quickly, putting on a comfortable pair of blue slacks and a white t-shirt. He set a pot on the stove and set the spaghetti noodles in it to boil. He then set the small table, putting two plates, two forks, and two knives down, and then retrieved a candle from the cupboards and set it in the center of the table, lighting it. He got a bottle of wine from the back of the refrigerator and put it on the table as well, along with two thin wine glasses. Just as the noodles were done, Annette stepped out of the bedroom, wearing gray sweat pants and a pink shirt, her feet bare on the white tile floor. Her hair was still wet, hanging down the sides of her face.

Birkin set the noodles and a bowl of sauce on the table. "Dinner's ready," he said, sitting down. Annette sat across from him and looked curiously at the candle and wine bottle he had placed there.

"Is today a special occasion?"

"Of course it is. We discovered the right enzyme today."

"So this is the first anniversary of our discovery?"

"Something like that," Birkin said.

He scooped some limp noodles onto his plate, and then Annette's. They ate small portions, since it was late and they would be going to bed soon. Birkin poured the wine and they tapped their glasses together, creating a perfect musical chime when the glasses touched.

"Cheers," Annette whispered.

"Cheers," Birkin repeated, looking into her eyes. They drank together, emptying their glasses. Birkin picked up the bottle to refill their glasses, and when he pulled out the cork, it slipped out of his hand and fell to the floor.

"Oops, will you get that?"

Annette bent over and picked up the cork. When she sat back up, Birkin was holding something out to her. It was a small black velvet box, opened up to reveal a ring inside. The cork fell out of her hand.

"Annette Porter, I want to marry you," he said.

Her eyes went wide as petri dishes, glimmering beautifully in the flickering light from the candles, and her voice became no more than a squeak. She reached out with a wavering hand to take the ring from Birkin, and held it in her hands. It was an elegant gold ring with three rather large diamonds set in a triangle on top, with a smaller ruby in the center. She blinked rapidly, and tears leaked down her face as she looked back up at Birkin, who was watching her expectantly.

"Will?" she whispered.

"Go ahead," he answered. "Put it on."

Hands trembling, she removed the ring and slid it onto her finger. She froze for just a moment, staring at it, and then stumbled out of the chair, rushing forward to Birkin. She fell into his arms and buried her face in his shoulder, sobbing gratefully. In her haste, she banged into the table and knocked the bottle of wine over. It fell onto its side and began to pour over the table, spilling onto the floor, but they didn't care. They didn't care.

"I love you," Birkin said in her ear, holding her tightly.

Annette burst out, half-laughing and half-crying, "I love you too, Will. I want to marry you too."

"Let's get married tomorrow. I don't want to wait at all."

"I can't believe this is happening."

"I was going to wait a little bit longer, but today felt right. I wanted to surprise you."

"You did," Annette laughed, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "You surprised me all right." She felt better now, her breathing slowed and her voice returned to almost normal. She looked down at the ring as it rested on her finger, hypnotized by how it twinkled and glittered even in the low light.

Birkin stood up, lifting Annette in his arms. Right now, nothing else in the world mattered but this. He carried her out of the kitchen and into the bedroom, leaving their unfinished dinner where it was. Gently, he laid her down on their bed, leaning down to kiss her lips. He wiped her still-wet hair from her face and carefully climbed into bed with her.

The next day, neither of them reported to the labs. It was the first day off Birkin allowed himself in over three years. When they came to the labs the day after that, they were man and wife.


	23. Chapter 23 Final Chapter

23

The Raccoon City police station was a huge, cathedral-like building built in the mid 1970's with considerable financial assistance from none other than the Umbrella Corporation. Entering through the front door to the lobby was like entering a cave, with the ceiling three stories high and large lights hanging down like glowing stalactites. An enormous marble fountain was set in the center of the spacious lobby, a woman with a water pitcher on her shoulder, which poured continually into the water at her feet. Wesker, upon first entering the building, was struck by the magnificent architecture. It was becoming something of a habit.

Brian Irons was a husky, brawny man in his early forties with shaggy brown hair and a full beard. Generously overweight but not fat, with wide shoulders and an imposing stance, Irons would have made a good linebacker. His office was on one of the upper floors of the police station, but the winding hallways and numerous rooms on the upper floors made it hard for Wesker to guess its exact position in the building. The office was surprisingly small as well. Wesker expected something much larger for the Chief of police. His office wasn't much larger than the bedroom at Wesker's rented house, with dark green walls and shining mahogany furniture taking up was little room there was. Iron's desk in particular was so wide it almost reached across the whole room, leaving only a narrow space for Irons to squeeze his bulk through to sit behind it.

"What can I do for you, Mr. Wesker?" he said, leaning back in his chair, his large hands folded over his impressive gut. But judging by the way his bushy eyebrows arched inward over his small, dark eyes, Wesker could tell that Irons knew exactly what he could do. The question at hand was: Was he willing to do it?

Wesker was dressed in a sharp blue suit that he was totally uncomfortable in. He still, however, wore his sunglasses. "You know who sent me, correct?" he asked. A necessary preliminary.

Irons nodded gravely. "You work for Mr. Spencer at the Umbrella lab."

"This is a confidential visit, you understand."

Irons chuckled and bared his teeth, which were stained yellow. "You can talk freely here. There are no listening devices."

"I did not suggest that there were."

"So get on with it. What do you want?"

Wesker uncrossed and recrossed his legs, putting on the air of an experienced executive type. The kind of arrogant, skilled bureaucrat that preferred misleading, politically inoffensive half-truths to the kind of straight talk Irons was clearly hoping for. He had to keep the illusion of superiority or Irons would walk all over him.

"We'd like to assist you, Chief Irons."

"And how do you plan on doing that?"

Wesker pulled a manilla folder from the briefcase on the floor beside him. He flipped it open casually and pursed his lips as he scanned the information. "It appears you've lost quite a bit of money recently on some unsuccessful business investments." In reality, they were substantial monetary losses on sporting events.

"How did you find that out?" Irons asked, baring his teeth again.

"Oh, we have ways of accessing information," Wesker said, returning the folder to the briefcase.

"You want to pay off my debts?" he asked boldly.

"Yes, we do."

"And in return?"

"Just your support," Wesker said, his voice smooth as a waxed floor. "We'd like you to accept a new transfer to your police department. Nothing complicated on your part. Just push the paperwork through without a hitch."

"You want to send a new cop to my department?" Irons asked, his eyes narrowing even further. He was suspicious already.

"Is there anything wrong with that?"

"All I have to do is accept his transfer paperwork?"

"We want your support," Wesker repeated. "When the new transfer arrives, we'd like you to support him. Help him out, listen to his advice, tell the other officers what a good job he's doing. That sort of thing. Promote him as quickly as possible, if you can."

"I can't play favorites," Irons said firmly. "I can't be supporting someone who doesn't deserve it. The other officers under my command won't stand for it."

"We understand that. I give you my promise that you won't be disappointed. Our candidate will do his share, just like everyone else. We only ask that you try to smooth his way through the system, so to speak. By no means should you make it obvious that you are helping him."

Irons thought it over, studying Wesker's face for any hint of dishonesty. There was none, since Wesker was essentially telling him the truth.

"For how long?" he asked. "How long will this candidate of yours work here?"

"That hasn't been decided yet. He may work here for years."

"This is too easy," Irons grunted. "All I have to do is let some employee of yours work in my police station, treat him real nice, and you'll pay off all my debts?"

Wesker liked how Irons read between the lines. He had never said the candidate would be an Umbrella employee, but Irons guessed it right away. "The money is nothing to us," Wesker said. "But having a police officer here of our choosing would benefit us greatly."

"Yeah, I bet it would."

"So is our arrangement satisfactory?"

"It's a deal," Irons said. Wesker half-expected him to stick out a hand and shake on it, but Irons did not move from his chair.

"Wonderful," Wesker said, standing up. He straightened his tie and picked up the briefcase, surprised at how easily everything had fallen into place. He had almost been looking forward to a more heated negotiation. "And here is our first payment on that promise," he said, reaching into an inner pocket and pulling out an envelope. He tossed it onto Irons' desk.

Irons hesitated it before touching it, as if worried it might explode as soon as he opened it. But he picked it up off the desk and opened it, using his thumb to flip through the stack of one-hundred-dollar bills inside.

"You'll get the transfer paperwork within the week," Wesker said, heading for the door. "I'd advise you not to inspect it too carefully, if you understand my meaning."

"Yeah," Irons said absentmindedly, counting the money. Wesker opened the door and was halfway out the door when Irons looked up and said, "Just who is this candidate of yours?"

Wesker smiled widely. "Me," he said, and went out the door, closing it after him.

**THE END OF PART ONE**

**STAY TUNED FOR PART TWO**


End file.
